Firstly, to explain the disappearance of this thread, I had an issue with a rather unreasonable neighbour and some allegedly extremely restrictive covenants on my rented property’s garage. As the aforementioned neighbour already has a reputation, I decided to ask for the thread to be hidden in the meantime. Anyway, we’ve now purchased our first home, with a garage, so it was time to awaken the Eight from its slumber and move it to its new home...     The first job I did was to replace the knackered front hub with a later and stronger one (same as a drum Herald). I found that the other side had already been done, and even found an invoice for it from 1958... Also repacked both bearings with grease. Unrelated, but I also fitted a new condenser and distributor cap as I think that is what caused the breakdown when driving it home as well as replacing the leaking filler neck rubber.   As mentioned. the front brakes needed the most, I didn’t want to do more than was necessary as I plan to convert to disc brakes (eventually). However, what was there ended up being a lot worse than expected - I was hoping to just fit new seals to the wheel cylinders but, as usual, someone had been there first and damaged the bores. In the end, I fitted new (expensive) wheel cylinders, shoes and flexi hoses. I also checked over the rear brakes, fortunately, they were serviceable, but the less said about this wheel the better... Similarly, I replaced the incorrect brake master cylinder with the correct sloping one, in the process I found that the Eight uses a smaller clevis pin than later cars. Luckily the original master cylinder was amongst the random parts included, so I used the unobtanium push rod from it. I also found that the split pin to retain the clevis pin to the pedal was missing, meaning that when I was driving the car home in the summer, the clevis pin was both a rattle fit and could have fallen out at any moment. However, as the braking effort was almost zero, that point is academic...     Moving to the inside, I discovered the original moulded rubber floor mats are probably the reason these cars rot so badly. I hadn't checked under them before, as they looked to fragile to do that before I bought it. Underneath, I found waterlogged and rotting jute underlay - despite the car not having been outside for several months. Presumably, the perished screen seals let the water in sometime ago, and the rubber floor mats and lack of drain holes prevented it from evaporating once the underlay soaked it up. I tried my best to take the floor mats out without destroying them by removing the seats, but despite this I was unsuccessful and they just disintegrated into smaller and smaller pieces...   So that was roughly it, I roped my wife into help and we bled the brakes, added some petrol and it more or less sprang into life. Picked the wettest day (so far) in January to do the move, flooded roads and even some snow. Did okay, but I did find out why the previous owner had disconnected the speedometer, the odometer is seized and the drive pinion makes a hell of a noise, I couldn't hear anything else even with the engine singing along at 50mph. Brakes still not really there, shoes probably way out of adjustment, and this is my first time adjusting front drum brakes. Can report that the heater and wipers worked flawlessly though. These days I have a lot of house things to deal with (mostly undoing previous owner's plumbing bodges), so probably no update for a while. But I have picked up some new parts for the car, including potentially its new engine.

Two steps forward, one step back. I've finished putting new ends on the ignition leads, an easy job with the correct crimping tool. The new Link ECU's mount is finished, and it should be physically installed behind the passenger's parcel tray today.  The step backwards was a wiring loom for the coils. I made one, and then took it apart again. I made a loom with a branch to each coil, and a Deutsch bulkhead connector, covered in a heat-shrink harness wrap. It would have worked, but it just looked horrible. The heat shrink contracted into strange, contorted shapes and the branches to each coil were different lengths despite careful measuring of each wire. I looked at it the next day and decided that it wasn't good enough. I had an image of what I wanted, and my first attempt wasn't it. So, I ordered some more parts and will make a new loom next break. That's one reason the project's taking so long. I work on the car during my week at home, and often find that I need components that aren't available locally. Even local suppliers need to order what I need from Brisbane or Melbourne. If I order the bits online, they arrive the following week while I'm away at work.  For example, I really needed 18 or 20 gauge wire to make the loom. It's not available here (the salesman at Repco thought I wanted to wire up 18 gauges!) so I used what I could get, mostly 3mm wire, and odd bits in my leftovers box. It really was too thick for the connectors. So, yesterday I ordered some correct 18 gauge wire (Brisbane) and new connectors (NSW) online. They'll be here sometime next week. Anyway, rant over. I took some photos of the MS3 Pro and coil, if anyone's interested in them. According to Australia Post, it'll cost AU$47 to post 500g to 1kg to the UK.    

Yeah….. tyres make a huge difference.  Current ones on Sooty seem to have more lateral grip than traction/braking grip.

That sounds very challenging and good luck with the appeal  I had a very icy trip to work this morning on a major Cheshire A road to a lonely works car park. ( well the top deck of a multi story anyway) crossclimate tyres and 4x4 kicking in.    4x4 is ok for getting going but you need m and s tyres to stop sensibly 

I sympathize with the upside down wriggling.  Working on the spitfire in a small single garage has led to some interesting poses which require a surprising amount of strength to get back out of!  I have plans for mounting me seats at an angle to make them more comfortable and allow taller people to drive the car, and being able to remove them easily to work on the interior is high up in the brief.

Works car park at home time yesterday. Sooty had about 40mm of snow on the roof. And it was rally night….. However, snow was forecast to stop by 6 pm and cover was very variable. 40mm or so at work in the Dorset hills, but none settled at home. So we out we went…. Left at 6 and the forecast wasn’t being obeyed (!). Travelled 17 miles back into the Dorset hills and then into east Devon in blizzard conditions. Was definitely wishing Sooty was Quattro and wearing winter tyres rather than the fwd/summer tyre reality!  SM was muttering away in the left seat questioning our sanity - not unreasonably really. We arrived at the start, just a couple of miles inland from Lyme Regis and I’d been expecting/hoping for less snow there…. But no, 40+mm in the car park, though it had at least stopped falling. Event wasn’t cancelled (though entry had thinned somewhat), so we had to do it.  These particular organisers are serious and successful ralliers, known to set a demanding route - and so it was.  And would have been without the variable amounts of snow and ice sprinkled on it.  We survived it. SM got thoroughly fed up with endless tulips, but I think we went mostly the right way. I managed not to crash (ABS due the credit for that!) and we even managed to get up a really long and extremely steep snow covered hill, though absolutely on the ragged edge, wheel-spinning for best part of a mile….. All of this made up very behind and we were judged OTL - though I’m going to dispute that as we were given absolutely no way of knowing was the time limit was (don’t know if seconds or minutes or tens of minutes late) and could probably have changed our tactics at the end to avoid it. We may have won the novice class again last season (discovered last night) but we’re not really enjoying the expert class experience. That’s it for this season though as we’re setting the next one (whole other saga!) and then off to OZ for March, missing the last two. No pots this year!

Day 8. Sometimes old Vespa part replacements simply aren’t worth taking to a paint booth and doing properly.  It’s sturdy but ugly.  Perfect for my Mille bike.

Dashboard work…..

I'm with you there, heart and soul

Yeah. Had a few debates myself in the past. The civil structural guys tend to base everything, deflection, depth of section, etc on rules of thumb against span with lots of allowances at every stage. And usually on the assumption that someone is going to be living on the floor above, even if there isn't one! Lazy. And almost always grossly oversize. I look at it as a Mechanical Engineer and do the calculations on the actual load case which they have real emotional problems with. If Planning are involved (there is an ironic term) then you don't have much option but to comply but worth a debate with the worked calcs in front of them regardless.