Once a year, generally around Thanksgiving, I schedule myself a week's vacation with a single destination: The Garage (or as it's termed around here, "the Lair of Repair"). This year's goals are finishing up the alignment solution on mum's Triumph Spitfire and getting some good progress around the Jensen Healey.
We started in on the Spitfire yesterday, but I keep forgetting that the diameter of the springs combined with the shock absorber simply do not fit any known standard spring compressors. I even upgraded my current set to a better larger unit. But, the clamping arms are always too big for the springs. I'll be removing the existing assemblies again today, disassembling them, and running them up to my local tire shop to be mounted. Hopefully that should correct that last of the issues there and we can put some new shoes (tires) on the car.
The other issue that has been ongoing with the Spitfire is the fuel system. Nothing super suprising there. There's a little gunk in the tank (varnish, etc) and the driving is knocking it loose and clogging the fuel filter. That, in addition to old rubber fuel lines was allowing air into the system when the pressure was too great.
One of the tricks to dealing with this is to rig up a 2-liter soda bottle with a length of fuel line drilled through the cap. You also need a small vent hole near the top of the bottle. You fill the bottle with gasoline, and connect it up near the engine end of the fuel lines, cover the vent hole and squeeze the bottle. It will use fluid pressure to force gasonline backwards through the system and into the fuel tank. In theory, this should push any blockages out of the way and allow fuel to flow regularly again. It may be annoying to keep a stock of fuel filters in place and have to swap them frequently, but if there's only a little crud in the tank it's far simpler than pulling the whole arrangement and re-doing it!
Jody
