The Spit had its top coat applied today.

The pictures look pretty good, unfortunately closer inspection reveals that the colour is slightly mottled in appearance.

So it will have to be repainted.

Andy has just emailed me the latest photos of his handiwork.

The interior has had its top-coat now, which gives an idea of how the car will look when Andy has finishes working his magic…

Cockpit interior

The engine compartment

The boot lid

When I started the Spitfire project back in November 2014, I surfed around looking at pictures of restored Spitfire IVs, in search of inspiration.

There are some beautifly restored cars out there, but I found myself coming back to this one time and again.

Sports cars can only be red or green, I’ve had a few green cars, signal red is a bit too strident, so Carmine red it will be, with a tan interior.

So this is where we are as of Friday, 29th May:

This week, Andy Dann has given the car two coats of primer…

There is more rubbing down to come, then a final coat of primer, then more rubbing down before the application of the top coat.

I can’t wait!

With all of the welding done, the Spitfire now comprises as much new metal as old. All of the paint has been stripped off and the car sits in the automotive equivalent of it’s birthday suit.

A bit more sanding is needed and the car will be ready for Andy Dann to paint.

Then it will be time to get the engine and gearbox back in and do what needs to be done to get the car through it’s MOT.

Here is the latest photo of the Spit with its new wing welded in place…

That completes all of the welding on the body tub; there is some work to do in the bonnet then we move on to giving the car a lick of paint.

So far, Andy Dann has spent about 200 hours sorting out the Spitfire’s bodywork.

The new floor-pan and sills have been welded in place on the near-side and the rotten bonnet sections have been replaced.

The only welding still to do is the rear passenger-side wing, then Andy will prep the bodywork ready for painting. He still expects to have it finished by the end of May.

With the May bank holiday coming up. I need to complete the engine service and finish cleaning up and painting the large box of parts stored in the shed.

The last few weekends have been occupied by cleaning up and refurbishing the Spitfire’s engine. While basically sound, the engine looked very tatty and needed some work to bring it up to the high standards that the bodywork is being restored to.

So this how the engine looked when I started…

There was is no easy way of cleaning-up a filthy lump like this, caked with 40 years’ worth of oily road dirt.

I scraped off the worst, then it was down to nearly six hours of scrubbing with a toothbrush dipped in white spirit. Finally, every surface to be painted had to be degreased with a cloth soaked in brake cleaning fluid.

Fortunately, once the gunk had been removed, the original paintwork on the engine was entirely sound, so I was able to paint over it with a couple of coats of engine enamel.

Finally, I swapped the tatty the rocker cover with a shiny new alloy one, and renewed all of the...

Last weekend, I spent a few hours restoring a box full of spitfire sub-assemblies.

This involved undoing lots of rusty bolts, degreasing, scraping off loose paint, wire brushing away rust, spraying everything with red oxide primer and hanging the parts on the washing line to dry…

There is something very satisfying in doing this. You start with an assembly that is seized up and caked with a mixture of rust, road dirt and grease. It looks as if it is fit for nothing other than scrap.

By careful application of good workshop technique, stuck items are released, gunk is scraped off, grease is dissolved and rust is scrubbed away and once painted, oiled and reassembled, you are left with something that has been restored to full serviceability at little cost apart from some time and elbow grease.

14th February 2015

The Spitfire’s new external panels

I paid a visit to Wymondham in Norfolk this morning to check out the progress Andy Dann in making with the restoration of the bodywork.

To do a decent job, he has to cut out all of the rust and get back to sound metal.

In the Spitfire’s case this will involve Andy cutting out and replacing most of the body panels on the sides and bottom of the car. This a big job and requires a lot of skill to get all of the seams to line up correctly

In the five weeks that we were away, Andy has done most of the welding on the driver’s side of the car. This half of the vehicle now has: a new boot lid, new boot floor, new inner and outer rear wing, new door skin, new inner and outer sills, new driver’s floor, new cross-member, new footwell.

Andy is making good progress. He has to work on my car between other jobs so he estimates that he will...