Suspension Strip Down

After the engine was taken out I could get at the suspension etc much better. It's a tough job on this car, because some of the bolts haven't moved for nearly a decade. They needed plenty of WD40. At point I really needed to put most of my body weight on them and at times stand on the ratchet. Eventually the suspension, steering rack, anti-roll bar (dodgy style links included), uprights and hubs were off.

The rear supsion was also taken apart. There were no real difficulties in this. The leaf spring came off pretty easy. And the halfshafts came of quickish too. The diff was frustrating with a mai large bolt needing to come out. I nearly completely ringed it, but I eventually got it in the end (luckily).

Sadly I've no photographic evidence of all this, but here's a random dark picture of my hardtop. Because I can...
Oh, I also took off the brakes. The calipars are looking pretty sad...
The disks look like they could be re-used. But I will probably be changing them for new, and possibly uprated ones.

This blog stuff...

Harder than I thought. Trying to find time to do will doing my A-levels is hard! If you couldn't tell I'm telling a back stoy here a bit and I got the car last June or so. I'm trying to catch up a bit. When I got the car I knew I wanted to take it all apart. It not that I didn't trust the previous owner, it's just that I wanted everything to my standard and how I would want it. Also, it would seriously beinfit me as I would learn more about the car.

It's a bit akward at the start as I was like "Where do I start?". But I just jumped in. Started to take the bonnet, front valances, bumper off. That was pretty much the front of the car off. Whent he bonnet was off I took the lights out (disconnecting them from the loom first). Also noticed a big lump of filler in the wing of the bonnet...lovely.
This is with the bonnet off. As you can see I took the dash out....see the electronics...scary! All the electronics were disconnected with the front of the car so I could take the body off. 4 people later...

the body is off!

Then only a few bolts later (and wet feet) the engine and radiator were out.

The Triumph 1500 with 1.5SU carbs. :)

Where to start?

The beginning would be good! I've preffered older cars to modern ones for a long time now, I suppose because I prefer the looks and the presence of character in them compared to the more modern mass produced ones. The engineering is a lot simplier too, which is handy since I'm only starting out.

I had to choose which one I wanted first. I scrolled around the papers and web looking for a car, even considering going to England to get one, but this always seemed akward and too expensize for what I was getting so wasn't finacially viable. I was considering an MG at times and even at one point a Herald 1200! But one day I was on the 'bay and spotted a Triumph Spitfire 1500...but I would have to go to England I bet....nope, it was rigth here in N.Ireland!

In all honesty I knew little about the car, except it was a convertable, had a 1500 engine and needed restored. Off I was to see it. Here see was, in all her....errr, beauty?When I saw it the car had the odd problem of not knowing what colour to be, red primer, BRG, yellow, black? Quickly found out it was originally Inca Yellow. I did really like the car though, it was just what I was after, it was different, as there isn't many of them here in NI. I had the feeling I was buyin gthe car that day. The list of spares was good and the man selling seemed nice and genuine - the lure of minis was too much for him to keep the Spit. After looking around long enough I put a deposit - it was mine ahaha!

Few days later went up with a recovery truck to collect the car and parts and hand the dosh over. It was nice following it down the road seeing it moving (even if it was not on the road or moving under its own power...). I couldn't wait to get started.