After 5 days of cutting out rust...

"BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires" (biturbo228)
04/11/2016 at 05:28 • Filed to: Spit6

...I finally have a FHC Spitfire!

Serves me right for buying a hardtop for Ł20 when they’re normally Ł100, but every seam and enclosed box section was thoroughly rusty. I can definitely see how cars made before the take-up of paint dipping/galvanising could rust so quickly!

As I’ll be re-making most of the internals, boxing in the lips for the windows and door seals to the roof skin to make a rigid structure, I just stripped it back to the outer skin and the window frames. I then spent bloody ages trying to get it to align as best I could and welded it to the body :)

Over the next few weeks I’ll make a box-frame around the perimeter of the roof, re-make the rusted leading edge and weld it to the windscreen frame and finish seam-welding it to the body (very slowly to minimise warping). Then, the body will get welded to the chassis a la Big Healey and I’ll have what I think is the world’s first unibody Triumph Spitfire!

DISCUSSION (8)

KatzManDu > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
04/11/2016 at 06:42

Excellent! Hooray!

On a selfish note I need you to come visit me in Belgium and teach me this black magic so I can get the DS a bit happier.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > KatzManDu
04/11/2016 at 07:17

Yeah I saw the pics you posted. You’ve definitely got your work cut out!

Can you weld yourself? If not then you’ll definitely be able to by the time the DS is finished! Top tips if you’re starting are that MIG easy as welding goes, it tends to sputter if the metal’s not clean so de-rust and de-grease as if you’re painting and if you’re welding to thin metal weld-through primer can help absorb some heat and stop it blowing through :)

It takes longer than you think, but once you get the hang of it its fairly straight forward :) oh, and a good phosphoric acid rust neutraliser and a coat of weld-through primer will help prevent the rust creeping back in :)

AuthiCooper1300 > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
04/11/2016 at 07:19

Mr Biturbo (nice Maserati name, by the by!) I understand the rationale of welding the chassis to the body, but I wonder if it is a good one.

Although I see the bodyshell/structure has already been reinforced with the roll hoop (at least) and welding the hardtop on the body... it is likely that the chassis itself will continue bending a little more than the rigidity of the bodyshell can tolerate. There is a certain amount of “give” built in in the interface between both – for a reason.

I suppose you want to rally/race the car and/or at least put firmer suspension in it (otherwise, why bother). After a while the higher stresses on the (still flexing) chassis may start pulling unsightly cracks in your bodywork - or even lead to a fracture in the least strong area of the whole car. (It’s like fitting super-strong driveshafts to avoid them breaking: you are moving the weaker link higher up the chain, which will mean putting much more stress either in your diff or your gearbox.)

Note that I have no idea about prepping Spitfires to go faster. Maybe this has been done hundreds of times before and it is general knowledge it can be done without experiencing any issues?

In any case - cool project and best of luck.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > AuthiCooper1300
04/11/2016 at 07:45

Thanks :) it’s definitely not a common thing to do with Spitfires (or any car for that matter), but the idea stemmed from a couple of others. The body on a Spitfire is already semi-structural as the sills are solid-bolted to the chassis and form the outer frame rails. It’s also common practice on racers to solid-mount all the body hardpoints for added stiffness. I thought ‘why not go all the way and replace the bolts with welds?’

I will keep a keen eye out for stress cracks though. Mine will be a road car so there’s not the same kind of tolerance for roughness as on a race car.

I am putting stiffer suspension on, but only marginally so. Basically GT6-spec all round. A lot of people go for stiff 500lb springs on the front, but I’m convinced that that just transfers more flex to the chassis and you could get a similar effect from softer springs and a stiffer chassis (with a better ride to boot).

CalzoneGolem > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
04/11/2016 at 07:51

I always thought these looked much better with a hardtop.

Good job getting that roof on. I think it was worth the full 20 you paid for it.

KatzManDu > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
04/11/2016 at 07:59

Never welded anything in my life. I’m half “want to kick its ass and show it who’s boss” and half “I really don’t want to fubar my car.”

I can get the mig welding kit for reasonable prices.

http://www.2ememain.be/construction/o…

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > KatzManDu
04/11/2016 at 08:24

Definitely give it a go :) it’s a great skill to have. I’ve welded up flowers/candle holders out of scrap metal for people as Christmas/birthday presents for the past 4 or 5 birthdays so it’s saving me money!

It is a little scary, even now for me, cutting into a structure thinking ‘how am I going to get this all repaired right’ but if you treat it as each constituent plane at a time then it’s really not too tricky to get things back right. Plus, so long as it’s on the inside you don’t need to worry about how neat it looks!

The one thing I’d take time to practice is making sure you can get nice, consistent strong welds. You’ll make a lot of scrap offcuts when you’re making up replacement panels so practice welding them together until you can see good penetration all the way along the weld (and it’s worth practicing welding at odd angles like to a vertical piece of metal or an upside down one as you need to get a bit closer if you’re welding upwards).

I suppose the other way of thinking about it is 'my car is already fubar-ed, I'd have to try really hard to make it any worse' ;)

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > CalzoneGolem
04/11/2016 at 08:27

Thanks :) me too (on both the better-looking-with-hardtop and worth-it-for-Ł20 fronts)