Saturday
 

Determined to refit the rad, I cut some bits of alloy, drilled and shaped them and

riveted them on to the sides of the radiator. Then fitted the fan.
I bolted the whole lot back in the car, then noticed that while I had been doing all this work, the top and bottom hoses had mysteriously shrunk by a couple of inches.

Surely lowering the radiator could not have caused that? 

Then it hit me that it was Saturday, and as we all know, car shops close at mid-day.
Better rush………… having gone to several factor places and being met with blank looks by the minimum wage Saturday morning kids, I headed for the scrapyard………….

I managed to get two hoses that will do for now, and fitted them, re-filled the system with antifreeze.

Now to start the engine and test the rev counter, click click click click!!!!! Oh no!

Flat battery, For F***s sake!

I shall have to charge the battery,

I’ve a good mind to charge it with “conduct likely to cause a breach of my aorta”

But I didn’t, I plugged it in normally, and went out for a beer……….

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Yes
 

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Testing times
 

Sometime later with a full battery I started the engine, not the best idea health wise in an enclosed build tent, but there we go.

First check for water leaks……..yep, no problems there.

It now became a race to connect the rev counter and check it worked, before I passed out from carbon monoxide poisoning. Rev rev rev rev look at gauge, is it working?

No it is’nt! Bollo! Doom, gloom, failure, slit wrists, sell as unfinished kit on e-bay

hang on a minute its not earthed dickhead!! YES!!

It works a treat, just the same as it did before, but with a lot more STYLE now! It has a Jaguar smile on its face!

Two or three hours of nano-surgery paid off!

Don’t we just love it when a plan comes together? That’s made my day!

Scottie - Looks like there is lots of great progress going on with your build. :cool:

Your rev. counter solution is a serious piece of work.

As part of my education can I ask another daft question...

When your fan is placed in front of the radiator is it blowing air through it?

I've seen others fit the fan behind the radiator and I assume they are "sucking" the air though.

Is it really just a case of "six of one and half a dozen of the other" and it makes no difference?

Cheers, Paul. :)

I could have placed it either side of the radiator Paul, as the makers say it will blow or suck,depending on the polarity you choose, however logic dictated that it go on the front,in order to act as some sort of protection
to stop any unwanted bodies from damaging the rad.( Although I may well use mesh also)
Of course it must be wired so the airflow is the same as when the car moves forward!
The rev counter was a success, but the speedo will be more of a problem I suspect!
I will sort some thing out though.

My project is done really. It's on the road, goes like a rocket, and is in regular use. All that needs doing is spraying. Next slot in my workshop is May/June which is a good thing, because I CANT MAKE UP MY MIND WHAT COLOUR!! :icon_rolleyes:

Narrowed it down to.....
Dark silver, sort of graphite.
Silver
Light Grey
Lime green, like the famous one.
Other light pastel colours.....
Red, (for when one day, it gets sold).

Well you've surely got enough time to decide!
red sounds good to me, look forward to seeing it painted.
Hopefully mine will be finished then, and it HAS to be BRG. :-)

Nose bolted on
 

Well I finally got the nose into as good and low a position as I could and using a 3 inch spacer, bolted it onto the chassis.

Three holes, three bolts, one spacer plus 5 hours of effing labour!
Unbelievable awkward and time consuming to do.
However, it’s done now.

I have posted two pictures to illustrate how it looks and mainly how low it is.
There are always the “can you lower it a bit more” brigade, (to which I belong
But I don’t pass comments on other kits, I keep it to myself)

To this brigade I would say:

Study the pics, if it’s too high when its finished there’s not much else I can do about it!

By default, as the body sits on top of the Spitfire body, the car will always be a little higher than it should, but at the stage I am at, I think I’ve got the shell as low as it can be.

If I ever built another one (no ‘king way Hosay) I would have cut the the Spitfire
Scuttle top off and drop the fuel tank at the rear. Which would lower by 2 inches or so.

But I didn’t. and I won’t go back down that road now!

What I have is what I have. Its lower than some I have seen, and I’ll live with it.

Because the shell is so low now, the sides hang down about an inch lower than the Spitfire sills, so the next job will be to trim them off and bolt/bond them on as well.
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How about all you fella's that have used Spitfires for your builds?
What kind of under body / chassis clearances do you have?
I would be really interested in feedback, as I may already have overcooked it!

I will measure my clearance when I get back tomorrow but the lowest point on mine are the cherry bomb exhaust pipes.

The clearance on these varies from about enough to get your fist under them to slightly less than zero

[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-W...206_152919.jpg[/img]

Slightly less than zero?? Now there's a thing, WCA!!

Fan
 

Having fitted an electric fan to my Spitfire donar, I came across this gem on a Spitfire tuning website, and felt quite pleased that according to the article, I may have gained about 4 BHP!
On such a light car 4 BHP will be a good gain.

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Definitely a good move, but I think 4 HP might be a bit optimistic. Think what a 4HP generator or compressor can give you. Spinning a little (albeit inefficient) fan up to 5,000 revs won't take a massive amount of effort.

When I was 16, my restricted Vespa 50 scooter boasted a massive 1.4HP. It had a heavy bladed fan electrical/cooling system but it could spin that to more than 5,000 and carry me and it at 29mph down the Golden Valley By-pass.

If anyone has seen a 4HP change on a rolling road then I will happily accept that I am missing something.

But, as I said, a good move and I like your installation..........the style of which I may well "borrow". Keep up the good work.

Hi Scottie, thought I'd let you know I've posted an update over on my thread about ground clearance that might be of help to you. ;)

Hmm, Spitfire cooling. Just to play Devil's Advocate I thought I'd better throw this advice from Canley's into the ring -

Electric fans and oil coolers mask the root problem and don't cure them in fact they often make things far worse.

"WHERE DO MOST AFTER MARKET ELECTRIC FANS FIT ON TRIUMPHS?"

Smack bang in front of the radiator core masking anything up to 40% of the core, look how big that motor is, and how much area the fan blades mask when both stationary and when rotating, even the mounting brackets mask parts of the core. If you can't get the fan on the engine side of the radiator sucking warm air through it then take it off and throw it in the bin.

The full article can be read here -

http://www.canleyclassics.com/?xhtml...erheating.html

Sorry if that clashes with other advice you've taken :(

Thanks for the encouragement Oxford!
The 4 hp figure was not my guess, but came from a website, I tend to agree with you on the optimism bit, but any gain however small is worth having!

Fans and things
 

Mr T, thanks for the reply, I must admit when I put it in position, I wondered about that effect, but most (as you said) people fit them that way and so far, apart from Canley, there has not been any negative effect that I am away of.

Canley do seem to express their opinions in rather bullish way at times, I've spoken to them on the phone, and they tend to have quite strong views on a lot of things.

I will leave it that way until I find it overheats! Then I'll swap it round, not a big job but irritating to do. That won't be for a while yet though.

On the subject of higher temperatures, did the rear rad cure your heat problem in the end?

I do also agree with Mr T.

I will be using an electric fan but as part of a complete Golf radiator/fan setup, i.e. not using the original Herald rad.

I will only be confident that it works when I see it doing so.

Rear radiator is fitted but not plumbed in yet. I have a BMW electric water pump and all the hoses/connectors/etc, but I'm waiting for some warmer weather before connecting it all up (although I have a decent sized, double garage to work in the light's so much better outside that I prefer to work on it on the drive).

The weather seems to have affected the issue too. Driving it down to Bury St Edmunds a couple of weeks ago at the end of November the needle didn't stray north of the two central dots on the gauge. At sustained high speed in summer though the needle would climb uncomfortably close to the top of the scale - a cause for concern even though it didn't actually overheat. I'm not sure if my case is unique, I have a hunch it's a generic issue that only manifests itself in my car because I actually use it for long distance, high speed touring, while most similar cars only come out once a year on a sunny Sunday for a pootle along the prom.

The plan now is to plumb the radiator and electric pump in with one-way check valves and a shut-off valve allowing the rear radiator to be bypassed. I can then choose between summer and winter settings, isolating the rear radiator when it isn't needed. I might even make the process automatic using an in-line thermostat, set a little cooler than the one triggering the fan, to switch on the pump and open a solenoid valve.

I'll keep you posted.

Canleys and fans
 

Having read the Canley article on fans fully now, there are a couple of things I would like to add.

In their missive, Canley were talking about overheating, and that fitting electric fans and oil coolers were not always a good idea.

They may well be right, but what they definitely were trying to do, was sell you a larger radiator!

Perhaps I should have made it clear that I did not have an overheating problem at all to start with, and the fixed fan that was in place worked well and did its job.

I am fairly sure that the system I have in place at present will work as well as, and possibly better than the original setup.

If eventually it does run warmer than it did, the fan will go on the inside of the rad.

I will keep you posted, but as I said, that will not be for a few more months yet!

I have had some poor experiences with the kenlowe type fans so would agree with canley that the best place to fit one is in the wheelie bin.
The low quality after market fans don't move much air and tie wraps to the fins is a ridiculous idea. They don't have very good seals either so the motors seize up.
The best solution is an oe spec fan and cowling from the local scrappy.

I agree with you about the tie wraps! mine went staight in the bin.

I fabricated solid brackets for mine.

Only time will tell on whether it works out okay, I will surely post updates.