Brad,
I fully sympathise with you on this one having been down the exact same
route. When I bought my Spit 1500 it had a lean to the right which I
reckoned was just a worn spring. To cut a very long story short, over time I
replaced all springs, dampers, Anti-roll bar etc with new. Still no effect.
It was then that I discovered that the chassis was twisted. Having looked
at a few second hand chassis to find a replacement for mine, it seems that
this is a fairly common problem. I replaced the chassis only to find that
because new sills had been fitted by the PO to the body tub on the twisted
chassis, this caused the new chassis to twist aswell (although to a lesser
extent). The solution was to cut off the sills and weld in new ones with
the tub on the new chassis and the steel hard top fitted to keep alignment.
Lets hope that your problem is caused by the drive shafts!
Good luck,
Jonathan
'77 Spitfire 1500 (finally back on the road!)
----- Original Message -----
From: Bradley D. Richardson <brichard@us.oracle.com>
To: Triumph Spitfire Mail List <
Sent: 26 July 1999 05:12
Subject: Further Info on my Spitfire height problem
>
> First, thanks to Andy Mace, Mike Burdick, John Reynolds, Mark
> Robertson, Reid Simmons, James Carpenter and Bob Sykes (I hope I didn't
> forget anyone) for their excellent suggestions regarding my Spitfire
> having a height problem.
>
> I jacked up the front and rear seperately, as recommended, and in both
> cases, when I jacked up either evenly, it partially corrected the level
> problem on the other end of the car, but in neither case did it fully
> correct it. I've taken off the anti-roll bar, laid it out on flat
> ground, and it appears to be almost perfectly straight. I can't find
> any parts on the front end that are different sizes on one side in
> relation to the other side. Inspected the rear, and the rear spring is
> indeed new, but who's to say it's 'right'. All the rear parts are the
> same size/length, EXCEPT the axle shafts. The drivers side shaft is 1/2
> MM longer than the passengers side shaft.
>
> So, this could be the problem, but it doesn't make sense to me why such
> a little length difference would cause such a big difference in the rear
> heights. The passenger rear sits almost 2 inches higher than the
> drivers side.
>
> I was able to get the rear to about 1/2 inch difference when I installed
> some temp 'spacers' on the drivers side front spring, which by the way
> got the front to sit level within 1/16 of an inch.
>
> So, unless someone else has an idea, I thought I'd take one of the axle
> shafts off my other 'parts' 79 spitfire, and put it on the good one.
> I've measured them, and on the 'parts' spitfire, both are the same
> length, which happens to be the same length as the 'shorter' axle on the
> good spitfire. My only concern is if I'm supposed to have the longer
> axles, or the shorter axles, but at least this would have the same size
> on both sides.
>
> Brad
>
>
>
>
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