This Spitfire has been tossed around a few shops over the last 14 years. The poor owner has been had by some shops not living up to their promises. Sadly this happens a lot. He took it to a very high end shop 14 years ago for a repaint. When he went there, they had Jaguars, Porsches and the like, so he figured they could be trusted. They did eventually paint the car, but had disassembled it and the owner got it back in pieces with many of them missing. He then took it to another shop that really didn’t know or understand British cars. We have assured him that we are very familiar with Spits and will get it completed for him. He has decided that he’s getting too old to enjoy tis car, but wants to finish it to pass on to his grandkids. It will be underway soon and will be a great Spit.
Update:
We have been going over the car. Although there are a lot of good new parts, many were not installed correctly. The first one that we spent time with was the wiring harness. When we first powered the car, the headlights came on without a way to turn them off. Most of the harness had to be corrected. In the previous shops defense, there have been a lot of things added to the car that make it more complicated, but it should still be done correctly. Some of the wiring was even dangerous. It’s now correct and reliable. We also worked on getting the freshly rebuilt motor to start. We found that the distributor was 180 degree out and have managed to get it to run breifly on starting fluid. We now have to sort out the fuel system.
Update 1/13/2020
We have sorted the fuel system. After some fiddling, the engine is very happy. The car has been test driven! The gauges were custom at the request of the customer and have been installed and wired. We were getting ready to install the rest of the interior and as usual, found more problems. The center consul piece that goes from the dash to the floor on these early spits, has no where to bolt in. It appears that a previous shop incorrectly installed the floor pans. The car is now on a lift for us to find a solution. Then the rollbar will need to be mounted as it’s only sat in the car so far. Then we can get on with the interior.