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Jerseygirl
Jedi Trainee
Offline
Greetings from New Jersey. I just purchased my ’79 Spitfire, “Baldrick” on Saturday and drove it home 340 miles. I thought I must be crazy driving a car I knew so little about that far, but things went well with just a slight headlight problem after a stop for gas. Lights wouldn’t come on, but we fiddled with the switch a few times and all was well. The contacts for the switch are getting a good cleaning as we speak and hopefully that will solve the problem.
Overall, I think the car is in wonderful condition. Crawling around underneath, in the boot and under the bonnet reveals no rust. At some point it has had a frame off restoration and was changed from it’s original Pagent Blue to the current Black color. It was the black and tan color combo that really caught my eye and made me consider the crazy idea of driving a car home from so far away. But I am VERY glad I did. It was a gorgeous 60 degree here today and I got my first chance to put the top down. OMG. It was pure heaven. I have wanted a convertible my entire life. I was planning to get a MINI convertible but finances just weren’t falling into place so I decided to go for a less expensive alternative. Wow! I am in love.
There are a few things that we’ll need to take care of:
1. The rearview mirror is not currently attached. It looks like the bracket that holds it in place my need to be replaced. I’ll have to start looking around for someplace to get one. Tried a few of the online places, but nobody seems to list that part.
2. I’ll need to get a spare tire. The car came with nothing. Was the spare tire full size, or was it some kind of donut setup?
3. The handling of the car is great, although highway cruising is a bit unnerving. I found that over expansion joints or other bumps the steering wheel wanted to jerk out of my hands and the car wanted to go every way but straight. Is this simply a function of the suspension geometry or could the car be in need of an alignment and/or new springs/shocks? My ’73 Volvo rolls right over these kinds of bumps without a hiccup so I’m wondering if the Spit just needs some TLC.
4. The car is running a bit rich right now and seems to idle pretty high (about 2K). Better too rich than too lean, but we’ll see if we can get it a little better adjusted.
5. The brakes feel weak to me but that could just be because I’m not used to anything without power brakes. All the same, we’ll give the brakes a good going over and plan to completely flush out the dark brown (yuck) brake fluid.
6. There is a slight noise from the rear somewhere. Sounds like it might be a U-joint but we’ll know better after we get it up on some jack stands.
I’ve got an owner’s manual ordered since the car didn’t come with one and I’m keeping my eye out for a good shop manual. I don’t plan to turn this into any kind of show car, but simply enjoy it on nice days.
Overall, I think the car is in wonderful condition. Crawling around underneath, in the boot and under the bonnet reveals no rust. At some point it has had a frame off restoration and was changed from it’s original Pagent Blue to the current Black color. It was the black and tan color combo that really caught my eye and made me consider the crazy idea of driving a car home from so far away. But I am VERY glad I did. It was a gorgeous 60 degree here today and I got my first chance to put the top down. OMG. It was pure heaven. I have wanted a convertible my entire life. I was planning to get a MINI convertible but finances just weren’t falling into place so I decided to go for a less expensive alternative. Wow! I am in love.
There are a few things that we’ll need to take care of:
1. The rearview mirror is not currently attached. It looks like the bracket that holds it in place my need to be replaced. I’ll have to start looking around for someplace to get one. Tried a few of the online places, but nobody seems to list that part.
2. I’ll need to get a spare tire. The car came with nothing. Was the spare tire full size, or was it some kind of donut setup?
3. The handling of the car is great, although highway cruising is a bit unnerving. I found that over expansion joints or other bumps the steering wheel wanted to jerk out of my hands and the car wanted to go every way but straight. Is this simply a function of the suspension geometry or could the car be in need of an alignment and/or new springs/shocks? My ’73 Volvo rolls right over these kinds of bumps without a hiccup so I’m wondering if the Spit just needs some TLC.
4. The car is running a bit rich right now and seems to idle pretty high (about 2K). Better too rich than too lean, but we’ll see if we can get it a little better adjusted.
5. The brakes feel weak to me but that could just be because I’m not used to anything without power brakes. All the same, we’ll give the brakes a good going over and plan to completely flush out the dark brown (yuck) brake fluid.
6. There is a slight noise from the rear somewhere. Sounds like it might be a U-joint but we’ll know better after we get it up on some jack stands.
I’ve got an owner’s manual ordered since the car didn’t come with one and I’m keeping my eye out for a good shop manual. I don’t plan to turn this into any kind of show car, but simply enjoy it on nice days.
