GlacierHello Friends, I used to be active in the list a while back and was
one of the original members of the group. Now, two kids later I am back and
hope to hang for a while. I still have the 1980 yellow spitwad whose engine
had seized on my way to my friends beer fest 5 years ago and now it is ready
to hit the roads again. Well almost... Me and my friend Dan rebuilt the
engine and gearbox to start with but soon we found out that we needed to
rebuild all the hydrolics and most of them got replaced. Except for the
clutch slave whose price jumped from $15 ten years ago top over $100! This
part got the standard glass smooth finsh to the bore and new rubber seals.
The standard crosshatch finish to the bore has always leaked for me.
A we were rebuilding the brakes we noticed that the tire needs replacing, so
in went the new tires. Finally it was time to fill up the gas tank and
start the car but as soon as Dan started to fill the tank, two leaks sprung
out of the bottom right of the tank. In my panic to stop the leak messing up
my freshly cleaned booth, I pressed my fingers onto the leak and both my
fingers ended up inside the tank. That was that, it was time for a new tank.
Fortunately Spitbits had a new tank for $250 (ouch!) but when it was getting
installed I noticed that it was taking Dan a long time to do it. There were
a lot of colorful anti- british metaphors were being uttered as well, so I
decided to peak at what was going on. Seemed that the filler tube was not to
spec and was too long. Off came an inch and a half and in went the tank with
another colorful metaphor. So now it was again time to start the engine,
this time we noticed that the engine was not revving fast enough to start
and then it stopped altogether. The starter had finally quit after 15 years!
We took it to Texas Alternators but they couldn't do it for less than the
price of a new one, so back to spitbits.
We installed the starter two weeks ago but still no start yet. The Allison
ignition had finally died as well. No matter it has a lifetime warrantee I
said to Dan and took it to Vans Auto. Van's ofcourse no longer carried the
part because the Allison was bought out by Crane Cams and the warantee was
defunct. I called Crane and by luck I connected with a Spitfire lover who
sold me a unit for less than 50% of the price. In went the new ignition but
still no start, the gummed up weber dgev still had more varnished gas in it
to clean. This brings us to today. I cleand up the carb especially the
accelerator pump and gave it a start. It finally came to life grudgingly but
died quickly, the gum is still there. Tomorrow I will dismantle the
ferschlugginer! and put it in the tank. During the rough start I noticed two
odd things. One there is a `significant' oil leak from the front of the oil
pan where we left out a bolt going into a stripped hole in the front sealing
block. We figured that the oil pan would not have significant pressure in a
new engine. But we were both wrong and now we need help.
1. Why is oil spraying out of the bolt hole and how do I get a new bolt in
without pulling out the engine? Will this even fix this problem?
2. When I was cranking the engine I noticed the driveshaft was rotating in
neutral! It would stop when I pushed in the clutch. This seemed odd because
when we put the gearbox in it wasn't doing that. I revved the engine in gear
and out of gear but the rotating persisted. Also the first gear seems to not
engage and sounds like teeth are grinding slightly. All four wheels are off
the ground since the car is on jackstands. So what is this stuff then? we
put the gear assembly in very carefully and checked and recheked the
illustrations in the manual (Haynes, bad picture by the way).
3. Finally the clutch plate was reused since it had only 500 mile when the
engine seized and it seemed brand new. When we were trying to tighten the
front harmonic balancer bolt, I put the car in gear and pressed the brakes
with my foot off the clutch while Dan tried to tighten the bolt. He noticed
that the clutch would slip with minimal effort and he couldn't tighten the
bolt. We pulled the clutch out again and looked at it but it looks good, no
broken spring or anything. It was installed the right way too. We
reinstalled it hoping the problem would go away by itself or we had just
imagined it all. But its still there and we don't understand, I have ordered
a new clutch in the meanwhile but I am not sure if it'll fix the problem.
The flywheel was not machined and unlike most flywheel the spitfires
flywheel has a slight lip on which the pressure plate sits, is there a
problem with this lip? The lip does not allow the pressure plate to
reference the flywheel surface and I suspect that maybe the machine shop did
machine the flywheel surface and a little too much too. Thus moving the
mating surface further away from the clutch facing. So what do you all
think.
Your help with these problems would be highly appreciated.
Best Wishes
Zahid
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