[Mick O'Malley]

After a rest day following my energetic weekend, I decided to offer up my exhaust. I rolled the beast out of the cave, recruited my son and attempted to remove the body - first time this year. It seemed strangely heavy and my son said it felt attached. A quick check revealed that I had left the gear change linkage attached. The M6 bolt that I'd dropped through the clevis and the clevis itself were bent. Aaaaagh! I managed to lever the bolt out with my wrecking bar, and the strangely lightened body came away with ease .



I dug out my pre-owned stainless exhaust and the Canley Classics fitting kit and consulted my Spitfire manual to try and make head or tail of the bits. No luck, not even a diagram . I offered the long pipe up to the manifold and it sat nicely between the chassis rails, but none of the Canley bits seemed a likely candidate for attaching it to the front diff hanger bridge. Luckily, there was a rubber mounted bracket on it in the correct position already, so I was able to fabricate a hanger from some 3mm galvanised sheet I had knocking about and, using one of the Canley 42mm clamps, secure the rear of the pipe. It was clear then that the back box would have to be suspended from the Monaco's rear 'floor'. Exhaust progress suspended!





I then turned back my attention to my recently damaged gear linkage. Fortunately, left over from my demon extended A352 gear remote, I had a spare to replace the bent one: ten minutes and it was done .



Whilst on gear change duty I then set about putting a little more bend into the lever, which a trial had revealed would result in bruised knuckles on the dashboard in 1st and 3rd. I stripped it out, clamped it in the vice just below the existing bend and, with the knob thread protected with a big nut, cold set it with a 4' length of 1" box slipped over the top. Perfecto!

I then quit whilst I was ahead.

Regards, Mick