A Triumph Swordfish 1500 - On The Road

[Paul L]

Countdown to Goodwood – Part 2

Lipstick
Giving my car a yellow nose band really helped it to stand out.

Unfortunately, it also highlights the grime of driving around London.
(This is after washing the car!)



I’d ordered another pot of paint from Jawel’s.



Sanded down and wiped clean the old yellow paint.



At which point, I discovered the new paint was a different shade than the old.
(Despite using the same supplier, paint colour name & RAL code.)



I abandoned any idea of just getting close to the edges and Plan B involve masking tape.



A convincing “paint added by a mechanic in the pits in a bit of a rush” look.



It looks better without the masking tape, if you ignore the runs visible from space!



With ‘zero’ chance of rain over night…



I left the front of the car like this, with the cover held in place.



A few hours later, it looked like this.



Thankfully, the paint was now touch dry, so I wiped it down and covered it up.



It is still misty outside this morning, but, at some point, I will have a close look at the finish.

Although, I will leave it until closer to Goodwood before sanding the paint runs out.
(To ensure the paint has hardened as much as possible before I do.)

Whose dumb idea was it to build a car without a garage?

Until next time, take care, Paul.

[Lucky@LeMans]

I find that designing all the sheet metal parts using CAD works best every time !

[Mitchelkitman]

What about a shroud that is made of GRP and is part of the bonnet? make using your CAD and test it to see that it just misses the rad when the bonnet is closed. Maybe I'm not anywhere close to seeing the whole picture though?

[Paul L]

Lucky -

Mitchelkitman – That could work, but I don’t want to add any extra weight to the bonnet.
(Which is already quite heavy due to the extra strengthening I did before.)

Similarly, I will design the inner wheel arches to be fixed in the engine bay.
(Even though the original Spitfire bonnet had the wheel arches attached.)

First Steps
I used a length of box section steel to hammer the edges of the side panels 90 degrees.



Each side panel will be two sections rivetted together.



Obviously, this would be easier if I had bigger sheets of aluminium to play with.

As the top panel will be made up of 7 individual pieces.
(Sorry the photo is blurred.)



I’ll try to cut out the bottom section today and do some more test fitting before assembly.

Cheers, Paul.

[Paul L]

Slow Progress

Even though I had cut out the side panels, I went back to double check the templates

Passenger side was as expected.



But the driver’s side was not.



Given that I cut that side of the bonnet off completely, the joint is thicker.

Nothing a slight trim wouldn’t take care off.
(The bottom edge was rounded off to give more clearance to the front grill.)



After trimming the aluminium panels to match, it was time to start joining them together.





The second curved line of rivets matched the shape of the panel underneath.



Panel #2.





Next up was the top panels and the first job was to put some bends on each end.



Then more drilling.



Plan A was to attached these two pieces to another three sections, like so.
(As this was the best use of the off cuts I had to play with.)





But this was going back to my old ‘over-engineering’ bad habits.

So, Plan B was to use 5 x smaller sections that will have a slight bend in them.



Joined the two sections of each top panel together.



At which point, it started to rain and I was working outside, so stopped to do other things.

Quickly clamped the four pieces I’ve made together to give the general idea.



Until next time, take care, Paul.

[Paul L]

Getting There…
Drilled the five brackets that will connect the two top panels.



Drilled holes in one side and just pushed the bolts in place to locate the top panels.



Marked up, drilled holes, filed smooth and fitted the brackets to one of the top panels.



Then drilled the holes in the other side panel, using a clamp to ensure the holes lined up on both pieces.



With all the nuts and bolts tightened on both sides I had this.



Which allowed me to mark and drill the holes in the other top panel.



Quite a few rivets later…



Next up was the bottom panel and I had enough of the extractor fan ally left over to make it in a single piece.





Some more CAD work gave me the odd shapes required to secure the bottom panel.





These will be rivetted to the ends of the bottom panel like so.



And then bolted to the side pieces like this.



Not quite at the right height, but this gives a good idea of the final shape.



I will also make a bracket to connect the bottom panel to the front chassis.

But I need to have everything fitted into place before I can do that.

Unfortunately, at this point, rain stopped play.

So, until next time, take care, Paul.

[Paul L]

Cutting it close…
Have to keep reminding myself it is July, as the weather is so crap.

Rivetted the support brackets to the bottom panel.





Pulled out an assortment of brackets and found a winner.



This will attach the bottom panel to the front of the chassis.



I then butchered one of the other pieces to re-enforce the bolt hole on the bottom bracket.



Drilled holes and bolted the side panels to the radiator support.



Painted the bracket black, as it was too visible through the front grill.



Here is the whole thing bolted in place.



Might spray the nut and bolt attached to the chassis black tomorrow morning.



But it is doing its job of pushing the bottom panel down ‘a bit’.



The back of the bottom panel clears the bottom of the bonnet, when the bonnet is open.
(And yes, the inside of the bonnet needs to be cleaned, which I also did today!)



End of Part 1…