What Have We Here?

I spent some of this morning familiarizing myself with the car.  Here's what I've found so far.

Weather-Proofing

I found the missing rubber strip for the driver's door, and it's actually in pretty good shape, so that's one less $30 tidbit to buy.  And I was able to press the passenger's side piece back into place.  The doors are fine now.

The brand new soft top in the trunk looks great, but the installation process is much more involved than I realized.  I'm missing some of the necessary fasteners, too.  I think, in the short term, my best bet is to keep the hard top on it and to rig a plywood & sheet plastic "plug" for the rear window space until I can get the glass replaced.

About the rear window: after checking with a Triumph forum for ideas, I had a couple options.  I found a place that sells replacement glass for $300+, but I also found Lexan sheeet at the local Home Depot for about $80.  And then, I checked with my local glass shop. They can fabricate a flat automotive laminate glass window for only about $90.  That's clearly the best option.  I need the rubber window seal ($120) before they can make the piece, and a little searching turned one up at Spitbits.com.  While I was there, I ordered the missing fasteners ($3.60) for the new top.

Battery & Starter

The battery is truly shot, not taking a charge at all.  I'll pull it before heading to work today, so I can get the core discount on the new one ($79 with core) at NAPA.

With the charger pumping out the 100A "start" current, I tried the starter.  It spun freely but wasn't engaging the engine.  According to my Haynes manual, it's either loose on its mounting, or the pinion is sticking on the sleeve, or it's shot.  I'll pull the starter and inspect it before I just buy a new one ($50 at AutoZone).

Miscellaneous

Aside from that, the only other progress was repositioning it with the front end on ramps, and a bit more inspection for rust.  There is a lot of surface rust in the engine bay.  I'd really like to brush it clean and paint it, just to keep it from worsening, but you can only do so much without removing things, and once you start removing things, where do you stop?  I'm really not able to take on a frame-off restoration right now.

Welcome Home, Little Spit!

I closed the deal on my new Triumph Spitfire tonight.  It's a 1974 model, red with a white factory hard top (and a black soft top too).

I paid $825 for it.  Depending on my perspective, that might seem like a smokin' deal: I've seen disassembled basket-cases posted for $750-900.  But they tended to be the rarer "soft-tail" Spitfires, which makes an apples-to-apples comparison tough.

And it's by no means certain that the car will ever fetch anything more than the purchase price plus what it takes to get it on the road.  It's got rust issues that are somewhere in that no-man's-land between trivial and terminal.  It's currently in non-running condition, with a possible bad starter and a probable need for a carburetor rebuild, and who knows what else once we get the motor turning.  The hard-top is missing its rear glass, and the interior is in very shabby shape.  I'm new to the British car hobby, but even I know that these costs can tend to balloon out of control.

So it's not a bargain, necessarily.  My dad always says "Body, interior, mechanicals - even a project car should have at least one of these things going for it."  If it weren't for the rust, or if the car were a driver, or if the interior was fresh - any one of those virtues might push it into "great deal" status.

Still, I'm pretty happy with my purchase.  I'll be even happier if I can sort a few things and get her on the road in the waning weeks of our Colorado Indian Summer.  We'll see....

So, What's the Plan?

The car's major needs are:

• Weather-Proofing.  I have no garage, so our most pressing job is to get the hard top fixed or the new soft top installed.  Otherwise, the interior and rust issues will worsen over the winter.  Also, the window seals in the doors are bad, so water can flow down the windows and pool in the doors.  They'll rust out fast if I don't fix that, pronto. 
• Brakes.  The previous owner (PO) installed a new brake master cylinder and started installing the rear drum slave cylinders, but the slave installation is incomplete and the lines haven't been hooked up yet.  E-brake is inoperable, too.
• Battery & (maybe?) Starter.  Can't very well drive it, or even test the carburetor, if the car won't start.
• Carburetor.  The ad describes it as needing carb tune or rebuild.  Once everything else is done, I'll need to figure this out to get 'er running.

The great news is that, except for the carburetor, these are not interdependent systems.  So I can run three parallel tracks:

1. sourcing and installing a glass or Lexan rear window, gasket, and door seals; 
2. jacking the rear up and getting the brakes together; and 
3. testing the battery and starter with my battery charger.

So that's where we'll start tomorrow.