Triumph Sixfire - Mother Rustia

[RichardK]

Out of the field, into the darkness

Morning first investigations:

Buy shares in WD40 everyone.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Bookmarked. Love the look of this little Spit 6 - it always looked so forlorn sat in the FOD. Is she a runner? I'm assuming probably not... 😆

[RichardK]

It was - but I haven’t tried it yet!

[Matty]

And? Is it running yet? 😄

[RichardK]

Got some new garage lights:

Loads of WD40 has failed to free the roof frame - but this is all assessment stage anyway. The scuttle is going to need more than a battery box, but that should be straightforward enough.

Now Covid things seem to be easing off, going to find out if any local colleges offer welding/bodywork courses.

The bonnet’s wide arches are very interesting. They seem to have been let in by cutting the original arch back, slotting the wide arch in, then stitching and filling the three layers of inner tub, arch and wing.

[Snake Charmer]

What do the doors open and close like?

[RichardK]

Just now, Snake Charmer said:

What do the doors open and close like?

Fine, apart from the handle on the passenger side being disconnected.

I think the tub is sound enough, just rust from battery and brake fluid as you usually find. From memory sills and floor are good but I’ll check below the battery tray once the roof is off so it’s less claustrophobic.

[Snake Charmer]

That's a good start. Interesting overriders front and rear. 

Edit: Just looked at a '68 photo, the rears look correct but HUGE!

[Six-cylinder]

On 7/11/2021 at 1:49 PM, Dick Longbridge said:

Bookmarked. Love the look of this little Spit 6 - it always looked so forlorn sat in the FOD. Is she a runner? I'm assuming probably not... 😆

 

On 7/11/2021 at 3:34 PM, RichardK said:

It was - but I haven’t tried it yet!

The fuel tank was taken out cleaned, slosh tank sealed and then it ran.

@Slowsilverwas never able to do a sub 10sec 1/4 mile!

[Slowsilver]

3 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

The fuel tank was taken out cleaned, slosh tank sealed and then it ran.

Thanks for starting a thread on this as requested.

Wasn't quite as easy as it sounds. It had some sort of weird home-made immobiliser on it which I had to rip out and then rewire the standard ignition system. The distributor was full of what looked like grey candy floss so was cleaned out and the points were removed, cleaned and refitted. Then the plugs were taken out and cleaned and the compressions checked while they were out. All the cylinders were about 180psi, equating to about 12:1, which sounds quite high to me. Checked that there was a spark on each cylinder then refitted the plugs. Cleaned the filter in the fuel pump and hand-primed it with some fuel. Set the ignition timing to a nominal 10 degrees BTDC and cranked it over. No start but lots of spitting and coughing. Loosened the distributor and tried twiddling the timing randomly while cranking it over. Eventually it fired up so I adjusted the timing for the smoothest running and tightened it up. Rechecking the timing then showed it to be about 90 degrees before TDC, which seems way out. I rechecked the firing order and I am sure it was correct. However it now ran OK so was exercised up and down the track. Unfortunately it had no brakes and was eventually stopped by rolling it backwards into a conveniently-located Triumph Herald (sorry Chris & Claire). Broken light lens on the Herald and minor dent in rear panel of Sixfire which was soon remedied with a block of wood and a lump hammer (Copyright Slowsilver panel-beating services). Then it stopped running. No fuel in the pump so we assumed it had packed up. Checked the inlet and, despite having sloshed a fair amount of fuel in it initially, no fuel was coming in from the tank. Checked the tank and it was empty again. Sloshed in yet more petrol and off it went again. Judging by the compressions measured, where the timing ended up, the noise it made, the amount of fuel it used in about 5 minutes and the fact that it accelerated like a scalded cat I think the engine (which we think is, or was, a 2.5 litre from a TR6) is far from standard. It will be interesting to see how it goes once it has brakes and can be thrashed tested properly.
 

[Slowsilver]

I like the term "Sixfire" by the way. Much nicer than Chris referring to it as "Gitfire", which conjures up images of a miserable old man bursting into flames. And all six cylinders did fire eventually!
 

[Six-cylinder]

When I bought it 8 years ago I did not look like it would take much to get it back on the road.

[Slowsilver]

I don't think that 8 years sitting in a field has improved it much!
 

[3VOM]

16 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

When I bought it 8 years ago I did not look like it would take much to get it back on the road.

Autoshite motto 

[RichardK]

Thankyou @Slowsilverfor filling that bit in - and @Six-cylinder, eight years in the field might explain why it’s an antmobile! It always has ants running across it when I go in the garage.

Wonder what the details, suspension etc looked like eight years ago. There are still stickers on things like the springs.

Doubt much will be reported this week but on the plus side, the lower front valence is rust-free - it appears to be GRP! I didn’t notice that when loading. 

Which raises the question: pipedreams of carbon fibre be damned, GRP bonnets and bootlid skins? The only bootlid skin I’ve seen so far is £250, but given how simple the overall sheet is I suspect the rusty corner could be repaired?

Again, spitballing. Nothing even remotely concrete; idle thoughts to work out shapes of what can be done.

[lesapandre]

Odd Triumph never made a factory Spitfire 6.  They made the GT6 but not the open car. Y'd have thought there would have been a market. They made the Herald/Vitesse. Seemed a shame.

[Asimo]

16 hours ago, Slowsilver said:

I don't think that 8 years sitting in a field has improved it much!
 

Autoshite motto #2

[RichardK]

51 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Odd Triumph never made a factory Spitfire 6.  They made the GT6 but not the open car. Y'd have thought there would have been a market. They made the Herald/Vitesse. Seemed a shame.

I suspect because it was developed backwards - Spitfire begat GT, GT underpowered, drop bigger engine in to make GT work - and by the time that’s done Triumph is part of a larger empire with cars that would be seriously undermined by a Spitfire 6 plus bad experiences/numbers with things like MG Cs.

[New POD]

10 hours ago, RichardK said:

Thankyou @Slowsilverfor filling that bit in - and @Six-cylinder, eight years in the field might explain why it’s an antmobile! It always has ants running across it when I go in the garage.

Wonder what the details, suspension etc looked like eight years ago. There are still stickers on things like the springs.

Doubt much will be reported this week but on the plus side, the lower front valence is rust-free - it appears to be GRP! I didn’t notice that when loading. 

Which raises the question: pipedreams of carbon fibre be damned, GRP bonnets and bootlid skins? The only bootlid skin I’ve seen so far is £250, but given how simple the overall sheet is I suspect the rusty corner could be repaired?

Again, spitballing. Nothing even remotely concrete; idle thoughts to work out shapes of what can be done.

If you have a rusty bootlid, could you use it to make a female mould. Then you could make as many bootlids as you wanted.  

[barrett]

10 hours ago, RichardK said:

Which raises the question: pipedreams of carbon fibre be damned, GRP bonnets and bootlid skins? The only bootlid skin I’ve seen so far is £250, but given how simple the overall sheet is I suspect the rusty corner could be repaired?

Again, spitballing. Nothing even remotely concrete; idle thoughts to work out shapes of what can be done.

You can buy complete sets of panels and tub for Spitfires in GRP and eradicate all the ferrous parts in a single stroke!

[Six-cylinder]

1 hour ago, barrett said:

You can buy complete sets of panels and tub for Spitfires in GRP and eradicate all the ferrous parts in a single stroke!

I have never been keen on GRP panels because they never fit properly and we have just changed a front wing on the Allegro from GRP to a good used original. Also on the whole unless panels are destroyed I prefer a repaired original panel to even a steel aftermarket.

[barrett]

23 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

I have never been keen on GRP panels because they never fit properly and we have just changed a front wing on the Allegro from GRP to a good used original. Also on the whole unless panels are destroyed I prefer a repaired original panel to even a steel aftermarket.

It's a Triumph, none of the panels fitted properly from the factory!

[New POD]

1 minute ago, barrett said:

It's a Triumph, none of the panels fitted properly from the factory!

Or were rust free. 

[outlaw118]

This any use? @Six-cylinder @RichardK Fifty Squids.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255060263853?hash=item3b62c6c3ad:g:MqcAAOSw1-Jg9qZ~

[Six-cylinder]

1 hour ago, outlaw118 said:

This any use? @Six-cylinder @RichardK Fifty Squids.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255060263853?hash=item3b62c6c3ad:g:MqcAAOSw1-Jg9qZ~

Thanks for tip off. The chassis is not the problem, its just the rest of the car!

[RichardK]

A little more progress.

First of all - the front arches are plastic, sandwiched into (what was) metal with a lot of filler; the rear arches pass a magnet check all over so I am pretty sure they either embedded an iron rod in the P40 or they’re steel.

Storage hasn’t been kind and if it didn’t have a plastic valance I suspect the front up to the headlights would still be in the field of dreams!

So as far as I can tell - the bonnet needs a lot of metalwork replacing ahead of the arches, below the rear vents, and then either the utterly-against-my-ethos replacement of the filler (this time with more flexibility) or steel arches shaping/creating from a donor car.

The front indicator fell out of the bonnet sans backing plate. I need to remove the bonnet anyway, so I’ll plan to rebuild that loom.

Now for the progress. Hacksawed the screw head off the nut and bolt holding the roof header rail on:

And unscrewed the roof frame from the car. That can be freed off, folded up and stored. On closer inspection the roof top has a lot of holes on the seams and probably isn’t worth the time to restore but I’ll clean it and store it anyway…

Hey presto!

There are still loads of ants. I had to lift the driver’s seat to access one of the roof screws…

Grim.

I think that might have been the inside of the seat once.

Still. This is small stuff, but it is progress. Now I can get the interior out and check the tub properly.

 

[RichardK]

Now I can get a good look at the dash: GT 6 Mk 1 with a vacuum gauge where the clock should be and the clock moved to the passenger side.

[barrett]

Are you particularly wedded to the horrible wide arches? Personally I'd be buying this bonnet for £20 and saving a load of bother (prevous comments about Triumph panel gaps still stand)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203532027497

[RichardK]

Wide arches are needed for the wide rubber - and it’s a big part of the car’s story, the custom-show look. So yes, definitely sticking to those but would prefer steel recreation if possible.

Short term, any functional bonnet will do the trick, but GT6…

[Dick Cheeseburger]

10 minutes ago, RichardK said:

Wide arches are needed for the wide rubber - and it’s a big part of the car’s story, the custom-show look. So yes, definitely sticking to those but would prefer steel recreation if possible.

Short term, any functional bonnet will do the trick, but GT6…

Do the 6cylinders know anything of it's story previously?