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Fresh new Spitfire 1500 owner here!

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Tibi

Tibi

Freshman Member
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Hey everyone,

greetings from Germany! I was recently handed the '78 Sptifire 1500 of my great aunt. I've basically been growing up with this car as I was constantly driven around by her, and I've loved it ever since getting into it the first time. Since her advanced age and chronic illnesses have left her unable to drive, she decided to pass the car onto me since I've always shown interest in it. It's been sitting the past couple of years and so it's in a bit of a rough shape currently, but I am working on getting it fixed up and ready to be driven on public road again. So far it's gotten: a **thorough** wash, a new clutch (this was a mess ~.~), new break cylinders, drums and pads in the back, new tyres, new fuses, a new ignition coil, distributor cap and finger, new fuel lines, a new valve cover gasket, and new hoses for the crankcase ventilation. It still needs some love here and there, like a new gas tank cap, new floor mats, re-seated leather on the arm rest, a new cigarette lighter, a new speaker, and an all-around polish, but those things are probably for the season next summer.
Ever since we had the engine out of the car to replace the clutch, it started running hot. Gauge reads a little over 3/4 (got no indicators as to what the marks actually stand for), and if anything I'd assume it reads too little since the gas gauge also never gets up to 4/4, even when full. Never had much of a problem before in terms of temps before (then again, it was only seeing a little under 10km per drive the last few years it was still active). Since the radiator is in a really rough shape and looks very much corroded, and since it only took very little coolant in, I ordered a new, bigger radiator, and getting that installed will be the next task. What worries me is that, since changing the valve cover gasket and crankcase ventilation hoses, the engine started leaking oil real bad once it's hot-hot (i.e. over 3/4 on the gauge), and the blow-by is absolutely out of this world (it's literally a stream of white smoke once it's at 3/4). The oil seems to be coming mostly from the oil dipstick, and since the felt sealing, to my knowledge, has never been replaced, I hope a new one will help mitigate the issue. Since it's gotten up too high on the temps, I hope fixing the cooling issue will also fix the excessive amount of blow-by. It's never been the cleanest engine ever since it got into family hands in the early 2000s, but it was never this bad. Compression test I found in the car back from 1990 from one of the previous owners leaves a lot to be desired as well. Cylinder 2 and 3 read 7 and 7.5 bar respectively (a little over 100psi if I'm not mistaken), though I have no idea if the previous owner did anything in that regard. He had the car from 91 to 03 IIRC, and never mentioned anything regarding engine issues during the sale. Well, if it inevitably needs a new engine, so be it /shrug

Apart from the little Spit adventure, I daily probably the most generic young-adult (26 still fits into the young-adult category, right?) car in Germany, a Mk3 Golf. Not the classiest, but it (somewhat) gets me from A to B, and it's dirt-cheap to maintain and build on.
I do pretty much all the work on my cars together with my dad (professional car mechanic). I'm a software dev by profession, so the hobby really helps getting some much-needed fresh air into my otherwise very digital life composed of my day job, home server lab, gaming, and way too much social media.

I think that does it for now, looking forward to my time here,
Tim

PS: If I do get the Sptifire out and running soon enough, I'll be sure to post some pics :)
 
Hi Tim - welcome to BCF.

Sounds like you're up for the challenge, and you'll enjoy taking those "fix it" jobs one at a time.

When you need some advice, be sure to post your questions in the Spitfire area:
> Triumph <

or even in the general Triumph area:

Triumph

Forum to discuss all Triumph models.
www.britishcarforum.com www.britishcarforum.com

A quick comment on the "white smoke". That's often a sign of coolant getting into the cylinders, maybe from some nasty cracks.

Say, what are the compression readings for cylinders 1 and 4? You probably know that your low 2 and 3 may be due to stuck valves or damaged rings. I used and overnight cylinder head soak with Seafoam (or 50/50 acetone-PSF) to loosen things up. (low may also be due to crack(s) on cylinder head - sure hope not.)

Tom M
 
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NutmegCT said:
Hi Tim - welcome to BCF.

Sounds like you're up for the challenge, and you'll enjoy taking those "fix it" jobs one at a time.

When you need some advice, be sure to post your questions in the Spitfire area:
> Triumph <

or even in the general Triumph area:

Triumph

Forum to discuss all Triumph models.
www.britishcarforum.com www.britishcarforum.com

A quick comment on the "white smoke". That's often a sign of coolant getting into the cylinders, maybe from some nasty cracks.

Say, what are the compression readings for cylinders 1 and 4? You probably know that your low 2 and 3 may be due to stuck valves or damaged rings. I used and overnight cylinder head soak with Seafoam (or 50/50 acetone-PSF) to loosen things up. (low may also be due to crack(s) on cylinder head - sure hope not.)

Tom M
Click to expand...
Hi Tom,

thanks for the guidance. I forgot to re-check the compression ratings today, but if my memory serves me right, cylinder 1 was about 9-10 bar, and cylinder 4 was at 11 bar. We will do a compression and leak test soon-ish anyways to get fresh new readings, since we don't know if any of the previous owners already took care of the low compression.
I actually misremembered, the smoke definitely had more of a blueish tint to it. I also doubt that there's coolant getting burnt or that the head gasket is in bad shape since the radiator was still topped up after driving for a good while and there is certainly no excessive smoke coming from the exhaust that would indicate head gasket failure or something similar. Although we today found out that the radiator most definitely was completely clogged, as the car, when refilling, only took in about 1.5L of coolant in total, and one of the previous owners apparently already had problems with overheating as well as the old thermostat was a 74C and there were holes drilled into it to essentially have it "open" all the time. Fitted in the new rad today but didn't manage to take the Spit for a test drive, will do so tomorrow and continue to share my story in a dedicated thread here once we made some more noteworthy progress on the car.
I'll keep your advice regarding the soak in mind for when we get a clearer picture on the engine's health in general.

Thanks for your warm welcomes and tips so far!
 
NutmegCT said:
Hi Tim - welcome to BCF.

Sounds like you're up for the challenge, and you'll enjoy taking those "fix it" jobs one at a time.

When you need some advice, be sure to post your questions in the Spitfire area:
> Triumph <

or even in the general Triumph area:

Triumph

Forum to discuss all Triumph models.
www.britishcarforum.com www.britishcarforum.com

A quick comment on the "white smoke". That's often a sign of coolant getting into the cylinders, maybe from some nasty cracks.

Say, what are the compression readings for cylinders 1 and 4? You probably know that your low 2 and 3 may be due to stuck valves or damaged rings. I used and overnight cylinder head soak with Seafoam (or 50/50 acetone-PSF) to loosen things up. (low may also be due to crack(s) on cylinder head - sure hope not.)

Tom M
Click to expand...
Hi again,

just one quick follow-up question. You mentioned letting the cylinder heads soak in Seafoam overnight. Sadly, the company behind Seafoam doesn't ship to Germany, and I can only get a bottle (16oz) for around 40-50 Euros with probably weeks of waiting for shipping. As for your recommended alternative, I can't really make sense of what you mean with PSF. Alternatively, I can easily get my hands on engine cleaner from Liqui Moly, but I don't know if that's too aggressive for an old engine like this, or if there are any other complications with it.
I'm afraid that's gonna be the last resort before we're going to have to plan an engine rebuild as even with the cooling now fixed the blow-by is still massive, and the crankcase pressure has to be so high that the engine is spilling oil out every where it can (the car runs on twin SU HS4's, I know crankcase vacuum is a common problem with Webers if you don't have a PCV valve but AFAIK SU carbs are fine, carbs also seem clean and to be building up a good vacuum).

Thanks in advance,
Tim
 
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