Triumph Spitfire Body Removal Preparation #6

Well, after almost three weeks, I'm happy to say that I've finally done some work on the car. However, there is somewhat of reason. I guy that I work with and I both have the same problem...lots of big dreams and lots of no space. He's been somewhat serious about looking for a garage but, as we got to talking, we both fed off of each other and he got motivated to find one within our price range. He found a 20'x50' in a local industrial park so it's more than enough room. The intention, to help supplement the cost, is to provide seasonal or year-round storage for people that don't have room at home for their toys. If we can a few takers, we figure we can make it work while providing us with a place to make a mess and not have to suffer the wrath of our wives. I've kept stalling on pulling the body off the car if I'm going to have to turn right around and transport it to a garage since I will have to put it out back and I'd rather not make the extra work. Keeping my fingers crossed.

As for today, it was more of removing pieces-parts from the body. A lot of different things. No real surprises, fortunately, so that was good. In no particular order...

I was able to finish stripping the dash after partially destroying it. Used a hair dryer to help loosen everything up. There were a lot of little clips that had to come out, but all-in-all, not too bad.

Finally got the dash and all of the plastic off.

Next was the steering column seal. Not too much of a seal on this one, but they are available.

Steering column lower seal dry-rotted and brittle.

Found some little carpet screws (?) on the driveshaft tunnel. Not sure if they hold the carpet down, but they seem to (I've never had carpet in the car). I love the finishing rings.

Cute little things...a regular screwdriver on right for scale.

The handbrake needed to come out and that was just a snap ring to disconnect it from the mounting point. There is a square adjustment nut that also needed to come off and I just spun the whole assembly as the nut was trapped by the clip and so spun right out.

Snap ring removed. The square nut is inside the metal "clip". Cable will need to get pushed through hole eventually.

That black stuff that I had wondered about on the rear seat pan was indeed sound deadening material installed by the factory. I was able to use a metal putty knife and pry/crack it up with little problem. Stuff was nearly brittle, but just flexible enough to get under it. Of note, a plastic putty knife would not be an option here as it would snap.

Passenger's side. Stuff came up pretty cleanly with just a bit of adhesive residue.

I also needed to remove the accelerator bar (finally remembered!) and the connection to the carbs. I drove out the linkage pin with a 3/32" punch and then had to use a bearing puller to slide the lever assembly off of the rod. After that, it was like a puzzle pulling the thing actually out of the car, but I was able to do it. I've heard horror stories about these things on my favorite forum, so I'm sure it will be much more fun when I try to put it back in!

Pin pushed out of lever. The hole on the bottom is for the cotter pin to keep the rod attached inside the passenger footwell.

Bearing puller setup.

Liberated. Interesting that it is curved, of sorts. I assume it's supposed to be that way to help clear the clutch housing of the transmission.

Lastly, I pulled the rear license plate light assembly. As with the black car, this one was also toast and rusted and half not there anymore. I used the sawzall to take care of it. The electrical portion of these are easy to come by, but the bases are not. So, I have a request out on the Buy/Sell/Trade section of my favorite forum to see if anyone has one laying around that is in serviceable shape.

Almost 50 years of rust...spider egg sacks and all.

That was about it. I did a bunch of other little things; pulled all of the remaining interior screw clips that I could find, removed the rubber boots for the wiring hold-down tabs, drilled out the pop rivets for the body snaps for the soft top, etc. I don't think there is much else I can do now other than pull the body. I'll talk to my garage buddy and see what he thinks and go from there.

Here's wishing all of my US readers (and anyone else that wants to celebrate) a happy Thanksgiving!

Stripped!