In article <200108290033.AA157810898@141.com>, Laura Gharazeddine
<Laura.G@141.com> writes
>>I hope you put an overdrive in there if you were going through
>
>all that
>>trouble and expense anyway...
>
>Nope. I went with a regular 1500 transmission. After much
>discussion, driving, 'research' and thought, I decided that I
>really do like my car the way it is! And it really does drive
>wonderfully. (It's not exactly stock, you know.) Also, all the
>stories I hear about o/d not working etc. put me off. (A friend of
>mine has this problem-he loves it when it works-when being the
>operative word.)
Very interested to hear that you made this choice. When I first got
Carly, and started learning about Spitfires, I made an instant decision
to replace the standard gearbox with an OD gearbox as soon as the former
wore out. As I learnt more about Spitfires, and found things such as
the Autocar mileage figures for both OD and non-OD cars, I became more
sceptical. As far as I can see, the only real advantage to OD is to
keep the revs down when cruising at high speed, which should help to
prolong engine life. Given that Spitty engines seem to last at least
150,000 miles if well-maintained, this is not exactly a top priority for
me. What is more important, to my mind, is to preserve examples of the
cars as they came off the production line. The number of people
swapping standard gearboxes for OD gearboxes at the moment suggests to
me that in a decade or so, you and I'll have the only Spitfires with
standard gearboxes left in the world!
>So, I'm a very happy camper indeed and am really quite happy with
>my choice to not go to o/d.
Very glad to hear that Nigel's heart transplant went so well. :-)
ATB
--
Mike
Michael Hargreave Mawson, author of "Eyewitness in the Crimea"
http://www.greenhillbooks.com/booksheets/eyewitness_in_the_crimea.html
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