First of all, congratulations on your acquisition, its sure to provide you
with months of frustration and joy. I too am the recipient of an old
Spitfire ('64 MKI) for free...mine was stored for about 25 years but it was
in a garage so I probably got a little better condition except the floors
are missing with plywood in their place (it saw about 10 consecutive New
England winters so the undercarriage has enough rust to keep me happy).
I looked in my Spitfire picture book about your ignition (Triumph Spitfire -
A Guide to Originality ISBN 1852238933. Excellent photos of all Spitfire
and GT6 models as well as tech data and some commentary.) According to
everything I can find here the 1500 should NOT have an electronic ignition
from the factory, it rather was equipped with a Lucas 15.C6 coil and contact
breaker distributor (Lucas 45 D4-41449. The ignition system you presently
have is not stock...thats not to say that it isn't better though or that you
should or should not keep it...probably more reliable to have electronic
ignition.
On your tach question, mine seems to work ok now that I have replaced the
cable, it doesn't bounce around at all. I did, however experience somthing
similar with a 1977 Oldsmobile 98 speedometer, whenever I exceeded 35mph the
speedo would bounce up and down, sometimes even sticking. The solution was
to relubricate the spinner inside the speedo. There is a special lubricant
made specifically for speedos and )I assume) tachs which has a very specific
co-efficient of friction, allowing the spinning cable to move the needle
smoothly and correctly. Yours may have just needed to free itself up a bit
and is now working fine...personally I would wait and see if it happens
anymore before trying to repair the thing.
Took a look at your website...nice photos, I need to do this myself someday.
One criticizn though, the links toy our before photos are dark blue on a
black background which makes them difficult to find...might want to change
the colors there.
Good luck with your restoration, you're in the right place for help.
Tim
'64 Spitfire MK I
>Today has been a GREAT day! I got to start the Spitfire after it's 10 year
>nap, and it sounds good. Now I need to take Jeff's advise and rebuild the
>brakes so I can take it for my first ride in a Spitfire.
>
>I do have a few questions now that I have torn into the little car. Can
>anyone tell me what the electronic ignition is on a 76 Spit? Here is a
>link to what mine looks like,
>http://home.earthlink.net/~metaz76/ignition.html Is this the correct
>ignition module or an after market, I am leaning towards aftermarket. The
>handbook says my car has a Lucas 45D4 (Electronic pointless distributor)
>but nothing about a module mounted next to the clutch master cylinder.
>
>Second question is about the tach. The second time I started the car the
>tach bounced and would not settle. The problem is that this was the only
>time that it did this. Is there a possible problem with the tach or is
>this a normal thing that happens every so often? I have since started the
>car several times and evertime it is smooth and seems to be acurate.
>
>In case anyone is interested I have been maintaing a web site on the
>progress of this project.
>http://home.earthlink.net/~metaz76
>
>Thank in advance for any help. And thanks to all the people that had given
>me advise on what to look at and repair when I first got the car, it really
>helped a lot!
>
>Phillip
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