Age related issues – checking the hoses

Age can often take it’s toll on the engine; upon further inspection, things that look and function perfectly fine can often be showing signs of wear and tear.

Take the cooling hoses for example. The engine runs and functions as you’d expect but as you’ll see from the images they can be just a fraction away from causing longer lasting damage.

Here is one of the hoses from our 1971 Triumph Spitfire.

Another one of the hoses had lost its flexibility entirely, this is not a good sign. When rubber no longer flexes it is time to renew. What makes this example worse is that the tube has expanded too.

Fitting new 3 point seat belts to our Triumph Spitfire

Thanks to the guys at Vintage Warehouse 65, our 1971 Triumph Spitfire is now fitted with brand new 3 point chrome buckled seat belts.

Finished in black with chrome buckles they compliment the interior of the car very well and the 3 point option keeps in with the authenticity of the vehicle.

Refitting the Spitfire continues…

This is the fun part of a restoration; piece by piece, day by day the car starts to take shape. Everything has been cleaned up and all looking fresh and shiny.

Today Asa, John and Mark have all been getting stuck in to our 1971 Triumph Spitfire rebuild.

If you’d been running around for 45 years you’d too probably start to look a little tired and that’s exactly what we found under the bonnet, a tired looking engine.

Mechanically, she run’s like a dream but after a little bit of cleaning and painting in places she also looks wonderful too.

We have resprayed underneath the bonnet and arches with a very hard wearing coating. Being finished in black really finishes it off. Not only does it look great but is a useful technique to help hide any future dirty and grime that starts to build.

Today, we also resprayed the newly refurbished shocks, springs and discs. It’s the smaller detail that makes a big difference to the overall appearance. Why spend all this time and effort on a fantastic outer body and then leave the smaller visible components thinking that they are not worth doing…everything is worth doing!!

Moving on to the interior, John has been busy fitting the brand new Triumph Spitfire door cards.

Speaking from experience, if you are restoring your own classic vehicle and your door cards look perfectly fine then please do not be too hasty at deciding to keep them. We very rarely have cars come in to us with horrible door cards. Door cards are more option that not still in good working order but when you have gone to all the effort stripping, respraying and rebuilding, the door cards you thought looked perfectly fine will most probably look tired next to a freshly painted exterior.

It’s absolutely worth that extra thought…

Here we are nearing the end of the day; the brand new handles have been fitted, the rear chrome surround trim is also in place, the rear lights are looking lovely and one of the rear black strips is also in position.

Soon be time to head home, get a good night’s sleeps so we can crack on for day 3 of the rebuild. Before the team leave off for the night we refitted the original chrome bumpers and badges.

The refurbished chrome bumpers have come up like new..but the great thing is that they are all original. This was one objective that Mrs King was really hoping we could achieve, from day 1 the original bumpers were always the preferred choice over a set of new and we couldn’t have asked for a better result.

Refitting the Spitfire

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Been a busy day in the workshops today with our 1971 Triumph Spitfire arriving back from the paint shop looking gorgeous.

With a shelf full of new, polished and re-chromed parts Asa, Mark and John have been hard at work re-fitting her back up, getting her ready to be back on the road.

The brand new light fittings have been positioned, the door handles are back in play and the rear chrome strips have been added to.

We’ve kept the original bumpers but have had them re-chromed and polished. They will be arriving with us tomorrow, thanks to Tony and the guys at Wyatt Polishing in Thetford for working hard on them for us. Sometimes cost plays a big role in whether to keep original parts or opt for brand new. As much as brand new is lovely and is often the cheapest option, where we can rescue the original parts for a reasonable price we will do that.

In this case, the bumpers have been restored which is a fantastic result![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”6781,6782,6783,6784,6785,6786,6787,6788,6789,6790″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Our 1971 Triumph Spitfire is now resprayed

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Here she is looking absolutely stunning with her new re-spray.

Trevor worked late into the night and all day Saturday to ensure we have her back at the beginning of next week. Sometimes, due to unforeseen circumstances projects and tasks over-run. We have a very solid record of managing our time and budgets on restorations but unfortunately due to holidays we are a few days behind on this one.

…it’ll be worth it though!

What a huge transformation to this little gem. All that’s left to do is the refurbishment of the wheels and then back she comes to our Ipswich workshop be re-fitted.

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1971 Triumph Spitfire in primer

Mrs K, we decided your car would look pretty in pink! Hope you like…

(haha don’t panic, it’s not, it’s primer)

Was a bit of late night for Trevor in our paint shop tonight as he caught up on the Triumph Spitfire project.

The great news is that the bodywork is all done and as you can see, the car is primed and ready for paint.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow she’ll have a fresh new coat. The next time we see her will be Saturday morning and we can’t wait.

Freshening up the tired interior

A trip down the A12 for Craig today as he takes the Triumph Spitfire interior to Bridge Classic Car’s upholsterer Kim.

In a past life, Bridge Classic Cars repaired the driver’s seat of our little Spitfire so we know, first hand, that the majority of the interior is still in a sound working order. As they say ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’…in this case, the interior is great so why mess around with it?

A bit of a clean to bring it back to life wouldn’t hurt but generally the seats are all good and ready to be refitted.

One thing to consider when you are restoring a car, when you strip a body and freshen up the paintwork it is only then you realise what parts of the interior are looking tired…in this case, what you see in the picture is exactly that!

But when you have a upholstery genius like Kim, this pile on the floor is nothing! Within a few weeks all of these components will be brought back to the workshops looking wonderful once again.

As for the boot mat, I’m afraid to say that this one has gone.

Unfortunately there’s no going back here but as we have the original on hand, remaking this is a piece of cake.

Not long now til we see her back from the paint shop. Everything is waiting on shelves, ready to be refitted. Tomorrow I have arranged a visit to the paint shop to inspect the work that has been carried out so far.