Triumph Spitfire Engine Rebuild #22 - More Auxiliaries

Continuing on, I installed the intake and exhaust manifolds. The intake manifold I cleaned up with a brass wheel brush on a bench grinder and by hand.

All pretty. Some pitting damage on left. The center hole is for the Smith's (PCV) valve.

I cleaned up the exhaust manifold as good as I could and applied some POR-15 High Temperature Paint. Much like the chassis paint, it came out really good. Unfortunately, due to some significant pitting damage that I didn't previously see towards the bottom that showed itself when I was attempting to mate the manifold to the exhaust piping, I purchased a stainless steel header from Rimmer's during one of their sales and ended up using that instead.

Exhaust and intake manifolds installed.

After that, I moved on to cleaning out and sprucing up the radiator. This is one of the items that I got from a guy in Rhode Island getting out of Triumphs. I'm pretty sure I did a post on that, but cannot find it. Anyway, I'm sure there was some rodent living in it for a while because I must have flushed a pound of acorn husks out of it. But, they all came out and the water eventually ran clean. As with other radiators I've seen, this one had obviously met the fan at some point, but not severely enough to rupture any coils. It wasn't until I took a picture of it that I noticed, however.

The picture where I saw the cooling fan "X". 

Better closeup of the damage.

I took a brass brush to the top, bottom and sides and pressure washed the cooling fins and it cleaned up pretty well. I also bent straight some of the worse of the cooling fins, though I didn't try to get the all. Two coats of the high temperature low-gloss black finished the job.

Post-pressure wash. Some of the original black paint sprayed off. Must have gotten some water on the camera.

Some identifying markers. Pretty cool.

Once cleaned up and painted, I put the radiator in its support bracket and mounted it to the car. The hoses for the cooling circuit were next.

One support bracket.

Cooling hose from water pump through intake manifold.

Lower radiator hose.

Upper radiator hose.

And overflow bottle. Think this is original given the condition it's in.

With the radiator in and sorted, I moved on to refurbishing the prop shaft. I already had new Hardy Spicer u-joints that I got from SpitBits, but it needed more than that.

What I started with.

The nasty, crusty u-joint.

One end of the prop shaft is designed to slide to allow for vehicle flex. In total, it moves about two inches. This is accomplished by an over-designed arrangement of a bearing and capture sleeves. Not really sure how to explain it...I suppose the design has a proper name, but I don't know it. Everything appeared to be okay, but it needed to be cleaned up and re-greased.

Closeup of the sliding part after removal. Luckily I had caught all of the little barrel roller things.

The arrangement, sans barrel rollers. The knurled cap on right screws onto the sliding part on left.

Barrel rollers and sleeves, all cleaned up.

After everything was cleaned up, I applied a good amount of grease and installed the barrel rollers. From what I could find in my research, they are installed in alternating directions, so that's what I did, slowly working them into the sliding, hollow shaft. This was painful as the rollers would fall out of slide around. I kept working at it, though, and eventually got them all in.

Showing the alternating barrel rollers. Note that the top one had fallen out when I took this picture.

Working the sliding part up the shaft, one roller at a time.

With that pain over, I got it primed and painted (high gloss black this time) with my normal two coats of each.

Primed and drying.

All painted and pretty, including the paint run. I taped off the knurled cap and shaft where it slides just in case.

All installed and pretty. Hope it holds up!

After that, I decided to put oil in the motor since there wasn't a whole lot else I could do that night. I had acquired the correct (vented) valve cover cap and got that all cleaned up. The cap vent uses a mesh of what appears to be a horse hair or something organic to prevent oil from escaping and getting all over the place. It looked to be in good shape, so I re-used it. I've heard others use steel wool and I'm sure that would work fine, though I would be concerned for rust.

What the inside of that vented valve cover cap looks like. Just a filtered breather hole.

And, before oil you need an oil filter, so that went on next. I got a Wix 51312 that came with the adapter for about $11 from Amazon that I cross-referenced on the Wix website as correct for the Spitfire. I won't spend that much next time, but I wanted an adapter that I knew worked and this was an easy way to get one that turned out cheaper than getting them separately. Though Wix does have a great reputation, in the future, I'll probably go with whatever Fram filter works as it appears there are several different models to choose from.

Whichever I go with, it is important however that, due to the orientation of the filter (it points down), the filter have an anti-drain valve that prevents the oil from draining out of the filter back to the sump. With the anti-drain valve, most of the oil is retained in the filter and oil pressure is developed quicker since the oil pump doesn't have to refill the oil filter each time.

Wix oil filter that came with the adapter. The grey area behind the six littel holes is actually a rubber flap that acts as the drain preventer.

Oil filter installed. You can see how the oil would drain back to the block without the anti-drain valve.

With the oil filter installed, I put in 4 quarts of Kendall 20W-50 motor oil (I'll do a final check of oil level before and after running it). I got a case from Amazon but it appears as of this writing that they don't sell it in that quantity any longer.

This stuff has the all important ZDDP in it that provides adequate lubrication for the solid, or flat, lifters used in the Spitfire. This stuff used to be in all motor oils but, from what I've learned, it tends to shorten the life of catalytic converters so companies have been slowly phasing it out from "normal" oils. There are several manufacturers that still make this "classic" formula, but it may be difficult to find in you Favorite Local Auto Parts Store (FLAPS).

My oil of choice.

That's it for this post. Except for some odds and ends, there really isn't a whole lot left except for the first run, which you've already seen (if not, visit here). I'll probably do a final catch-all post and almost be caught up to reality!