The Creation Of A Spit6

Spitfire
First off, not all of us have a big garage with a lift, so getting the car body up for repair can be a challenge. We don't want to bend the car in half. Leaving it on the frame is the best for replacing the sills under the doors, that would be my first move, if they need replacing.
After all work in that area was done, I needed to get some paint on the bottom of the car, so here is what I did. You must use lots of jack stands, raising them a little at the time.
The boards are on the welded seam on the bottom, and 2 by 4, the large one I used had a tendency to get sideways. Brace the front and rear also. This let me get the firewall sanded in stages, as there are lots of things to catch you fingers, so taking time will save lots of cuts and broken finger nails. Plus here is where the rattle can of primer is a big time advantage, kind of a primer and protect as you have enough for the day.
At the end you will sand and seal it all before painting.

The starter on the GT6 engine is on the right side, so the cut out for the Spitfire doesn't do the trick. If you are lucky like me, I had a GT6 to get the cutout right.
It has been drilled for the new tunnel hole down at the same area.
Oh, a Spitfire tunnel won't do.without some major cutting.

Got the body back on the frame today, setting on old sheets to protect from over spray.
As I will be using the vents of the GT6, I checked out the door condition of the ones that came with this donor and one good and one full of bondo. So I checked out the ones that came with the '78 Spit and sure enough the holes for the brackets for the vents were still stamped in the inter door skin. These also have the reinforced crash doors, so sometimes the choice is made for you. The '78 needed one area welded up where someone ripped the mirror off, no big deal, hammer and dolly got it close and bondo did the rest.
I need to test fit before I get ready for paint, Murphy's law, you know.
There are four brackets that hold the vent in place, the front one is being the larger and has a screw at the top that has access through a hole in the front shelf of the door, covered by a rubber plug. The rear slide for the window needs to be removed to make it easy to remove the vent as a unit. It has a rubber plug covering a screw at the bottom rear of the door. Then the window itself comes out.
Now lots of cleaning and polishing the chrome.
I did install the rear end in the frame before sliding it back under the car. No issue here, just remember the long bolt goes in after the two front mounts have the bolts sticking through their respective hole. Just set the rear in the two brackets first. Oh, make sure the rear of the differential will go in there. I put poly bushings in and the metal tubes would not go in the bracket on either side, even after I did a little crow bar work, so ground them down and filled off raw edges on both ends.

A little plumbing in the brake department was necessary as the lines from the master to the PDWA valve were rotted in half when I got the car. The longer one with the standard fittings on each end were no problem, but the larger one on both ends was a problem. I had several lines that run from the valve to the 3 way at the bottom of the firewall, so I cut one the right length and took one of the old fittings from the rotted line and tried a friends bubble flare tool and it was worn out and would not hold the line.
So Advance had one to rent for $35 and as I have a account with them, it was only $25, which I will get back on return tomorrow. It takes a little practice to get it centered and straight but easy enough. You have to do it twice to get it nice and big enough to seal and snug up solid.
Now the master can be installed and lines can be run along the frame.
My son was here over the past 4 days and we got lots of things done, steering rank, massive front bumper brackets off and the rotted GT6 cut in half and out of here. Dirty work.
Thank you Wetwolf.
Oh, he has some things planned for all of us, What a difference it's going to make. All in good time.

The trunk lid was my last body work of any serious concern.
Most of the corners on any rusty trunk are in trouble, my was no exception.
I cut out and folded a part for replacement, sorry no pictures, just started working and didn't think about it. The whole piece was less than 4 square inches. Had to do both sides for about 1 inch then folding the corner and the larger bubble on the corner was about half gone, then the top required a 1 inch triangle piece with a step down in it to give it some substance for welding.
I will take a picture of the final before a bondo skim.
It took a couple of hours but I was trying to take as little as possible and it turns out, much easier to cut out enough to make the replacement part a much easier cut out with a grinding/cutoff disk on the dremmel, the 1 1/2 heavy duty one.
The piece looks like a butterfly without the head for the sides and lower bump, then the top piece can be held in with a magnet for tacking it in a couple of places..

Wayne

http://www.triumphexp.com/phorum/read.php?8,1407833,page=2
I tried to move the working part of this, but no luck.
I do believe it worked out great, some will disagree, sorry.