1979 Trouble Spitfire

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Any pics of the Cooper?

[xtriple]

God no. It was back in the distant past when you had to take items to a 'professional' studio and wait while the 'Birdie' flashed and he developed the glass plates.

[SiC]

I bloody love this car. On paper it should rubbish. Out of date technology with a rattly underpowered and under designed engine, with a bendy chassis and flaky build quality.

But it's great fun!


I left it running on the drive to see how hot it got to.

Above the middle but it stopped there and didn't rise much more.


What does that correspond to?


Upto temperature and generally okay. Actual coolant may be a bit higher than this.

More crucially, especially with modern fuel, are the float bowls. These previously were far too hot to touch.


I'll live with that. I'll still wire in the electric fan though.


Before wiring that in, there needs to be a clear out of all the old aftermarket wiring.

First step was removing the centre dash. I came a cropper early on as I didn't have an imperial Allen key to get the dash controls off. Well I should but someone (me) has managed to put a metric back in the size I needed. However a T6 fitted perfectly!


With that off, it's just four exposed screw heads and fold it down.

All the green/yellow wiring is aftermarket. I chopped all that out pretty quickly. I still have no idea what these lights were for. The bulb connection was earth and the other terminal was just floating.



Looking under the dash I found this loose clip on the steering column. This was no doubt making a lot of the rattling noise.


The auxiliary switch was wired into the main light switch.


Of course badly. At least it was soldered. Shame they didn't put heatshrink over the terminal.



The light to the right was an even better installation. It's wire to the bulb was trapped under the steering wheel column bracket. I just chopped it flush as I couldn't be bothered to try getting the bracket off.



That wire was attached to the bulb wire by wrapping the two together and putting insulation tape over it. Safety fast?
I should point out the wire used was standard earth appliance wire. You know it's a good job well done when random wire is used.


Following the wiring, it appears it was used for indicators. No idea why as there is a factory green light in the centre of the dash already.

With all that done, I set onto the non-functioning hazards.

I removed the hazard flasher unit and tested it on the bench. That worked fine.

Pulled the hazard switch and pulled it apart.


Pretty dirty. I cleaned all this up.


It still didn't work! After further poking it started working. To cut a long story short wiggling the brown wire on the back of the fuse box got it all working again. Not entirely sure what the problem was but I wiggled the fuse about and it now works reliably. I think the fusebox terminals have gone a bit limp.


The main flasher is definitely not original. Not least it's made in France. No idea what it's from but it's branded "Klaxton". Opening it up showed a bit more complicated affair than the usual Lucas flasher. But essentially the same bi-metalic affair. The other terminals go through the reed switches. Presumably for a dash LED and such.


It makes a nice and proper clicky sound, so it can stay. I did manage to break the fixing onto the metal bracket so I zip tied it into place. A bit bodgy but the other flasher unit I have, I don't have a mounting bracket for it anyway.


I still need to clean out more wiring. Under the bonnet is a random brown wire that doesn't seem to go anywhere and all the wiring for the fan too. Some of that is attached to the starter relay.

The plan with the fan wiring is to remove it all and start again. I was thinking of putting the switch through a fused relay. That is then off the switched ignition and the fan side off permanent live. The idea being that turning the ignition off will turn it off too.

However now I'm thinking of simplifying it further by wiring it directly through a 20A switch straight onto the battery live. The thought being it's an emergency switch, so the ability to run it with ignition off is a useful thing if it's really toasty. No relay as a 20A(or higher) DC rated switch should be sufficient as I measured 18A peak and 11A when running. Then a 20A inline fuse to protect it all.

[Hooli]

From memory the warmer 'stat for these is 82c so your temps make sense, guage is pretty much where mine used to get too as well.

Previous owner wiring is always a joy isn't it?

[PhilA]

That and those bimetallic gauges have a +-5° variance of accuracy when new so that's about right.

[DodgeRover]

Re the electric fan, I would still run it through a relay, that's a lot of load to go through a switch requiring some pretty thick wire to and fro. If you really wanted it to run on after you switch the ignition off you could add a timer circuit, however unless you add an electric auxiliary water pump without the engine running it's going to have a limited ability to cool to down.

[PhilA]

It'll thermo-siphon until the thermostat shuts. Convection works quite well, really. Plus the radiator fitted is about 2x the cooling capability of the original.
It'll help reduce vapor lock in the carbs and fuel line too.

[SiC]

That and those bimetallic gauges have a +-5° variance of accuracy when new so that's about right.

Looking behind the dash, it looks to be still on the electro-mechanical regulator too. Gauges aren't moving after starting though, which suggests it is doing some regulating. Not going to touch the regulator for now as it isn't obviously broken.

[PhilA]

That and those bimetallic gauges have a +-5° variance of accuracy when new so that's about right.

Looking behind the dash, it looks to be still on the electro-mechanical regulator too. Gauges aren't moving after starting though, which suggests it is doing some regulating. Not going to touch the regulator for now as it isn't obviously broken.

It should regulate to an average (noisy) 10 volts. The gauges are so slow to react that method works.


Agreed though, it's working. Do not poke.

[BenHar]

All iron engine will not need after run on the cooling.

Those triumph 4 pots only had one weakness. The thrust bearings.

Ben