Forward radiator

Apols for not posting for ages - been working on the car! :-) Anyway the heading for this entry isn't cooling systems :-) it's about the company Forward Radiator Ltd. They werea wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Triumph and based in Birmingham. The importance of the company to FC316 and other very early Spitfires is that Forward Radiator built the bodies for the car.

The interesting bit for early car afficionados is that when Forward radiator started building bodies for the Spitfire they were using very cheap tooling for the panels etc. BL who had just taken over Standard Triumph were cutting costs all over the place and invested a very meagre £200,000 in machine tooling for the Spitfire range (as well as liberally using the Herald parts bin of course!) £200, 000 was a gamble - just enough to get the job done - not nearly enough if the car proved a runaway success (which of course it was!). Soon after the October launch with orders of over £7 million in the first week something had to be done and a massive investment in tooling improvement began this included redesign of some panels.

So the early car bodies were built on cheap presses and it's for this they are different to almost every other Spitfire produced. The cheaper lamp fittings; pop rivetted bonnet catch runners on the upper a post rather than the very familiar angled runner in the pressing and welded in cut out sections on the petrol tank (1963 cars onwards had the cut out as part of the panel pressing.

I'm fortunate that FC316 has all these elements still in place and they won't need to be wholly replaced (although lots of other holey bits will!).

To finish - work going ok on the restoration - I've been cutting out the old "D" panels and supports on the bonnet today (already removed the front wings which were rotten through!) the good news is that the front grill panel is in good condition and the light panels are also pretty good with just minor patching required. The main bonnet panel is likewise in great condition.

I've also been trying to organise again annd label up all the bolts, bushes and other bits and bobs in a more orderly fashion :-)

I mentioned in an earlier blog post some of the very early features of FC316. Here are some photos of the stop lamps. the right hand unit is the prototype. As you can see the metal lug at the bottom is traight rather than slightly inverted like in the left hand "regular" unit. In the second photo you can see differences in the unit pressing (again the "regular" unit is on the left), whilst the last photo shows the "regular" unit on the left with the Lucas branding and part numbers whilst the "prototype" unit has no markings at all apart from a crudely stamped L672 behind the lamp reflector.

The other interesting item is the boot lid frame. The parts catalogue I have show these were amended sometime before February 1963 by adding a central strengthener. The photo on the left shows the "regular" strengthener the right hand photo shows the frame from FC316 without the added central stengthener.

Ok. So this is supposed to be a blog for my very early Spitfire4 and so far no pictures :-) well time to rectify that!

Here is is in all her, ahem... glory! - She's actually worse than she looks! Not that she looks much like this anymore! So far I've removed the body, and dismantled to component parts. Chassis has been blasted, painted and the front suspension has been rebuilt with new springs, shocks, discs, wheel bearings, polybushes, trunnions, top ball joints, trackrod end etc The steering rack has been refitted as has the anti roll bar. The Diff is in place as is a new rear leaf spring. Whilst doing this work I've been keeping track of what's original (pretty much everything) and what's very different/unique to the early productions cars - here's a list of the items present on my car:

• All glass has been Triplex dated as being 4th Qtr 1962



• Rear stop lamps are prototypes with no parts numbers or makers marks!



• Bonnet runners on the bulkhead are pop riveted rather than part of the pressing - V. early production change



• Fuel tank is unique with welded cut outs rather than part of the pressing on later cars - V. early production change


• Dashtop is straight rather than flared over the instruments early change not noted


• Original boot frame is in place without additional strengthener tube changed pre Feb 1963


• Frictionless propeller shaft rather than sliding spline - Changed at FC 1876


• No dust shield on front discs; separate casting for brake calliper mounting - Changed at FC2393


• Different lever arms - Changed at FC15576


• Different Vertical links - Changed at FC 15576


• Drain tube and plenum chamber from Heater box rather than later rubber flap arrangement - Changed at FC 5964


• Long nose B-post cappings and rear wing trim to end of panel - Changed at FC 5463


• Original two piece door seal cloth/rubber instead of furflex single piece seal - Changed at FC5463


• Rear valance has the top and bottom holes for the rear bumper/over rider fixing - Changed at FC 14196

That's all for now :-)

Here's theMk3 Sun Visors that I bought recently from eBay. I've seen these raise more than £100 in auction so was very happy to pay £30 for this set, which appears to be in great condition!

On the History side of FC316 I've managed to track down the last real owner (the chap I bought the car from had never officially had the car registered in his name). Once again I was lucky in that whilst all I had was a name, it was an unusual name, especially for Devon and a village/area which was pretty sparesely populated. Add to that the fact that the chap had at one time his own business meant I could track him via the Companies House Directors register and get an address. Again some good luck in that the address was a house name and a google search on this turned up that Mr M. Fraser or at least his son D.S. Fraser still lived there. I've written to Mr. Fraser asking for anything he may recall aboyut the car (given that I believe they owned her from 1975 or so to approx 1996 they should know a fair bit!)

Had some good pieces of luck this weekend. I've managed to acquire two sets of original white sun visors! ! set in good condition for an early Mk3 Spitfire with the correct brackets and 1 set in not quite so good condition for the Spitfire 4 MK1 & Mk2 again with the correct brackets! Been looking for these for ages then two come along at once! I paid very reasonable prices too :-)

The 3rd piece of good luck was that I've acquired some Spitfire Mk1/Mk2 hardtop brackets from a very nice chap who was willing to let me have his in exchange for my old MK3 Brackets. The reason behind this is that my MK3 has a Williams & Pritchard fastback roof (My MK3 is the Conifer Green one in the centre - pic taken at the TSSC International in 2009) and this has replaced my Works factory hardtop. So I want to fit the Factory top to FC316 and to do that I needed some MK1 brackets:-) Only problem now is that the Hardtop was only released in December 1963 and given that my Car is a 1962 build she doesn't have the fixing holes in the rear deck - not sure how I'm going to get around this as I def. do not want to drill into the rear deck - Originality is going to be the watchword for this restoration! (well as much as is feasible!).

Introductions!

Hi there and welcome to my new Blog. Lets get the basics out of the way first! My name is Jon Cronin, late 30's, married to Helen and together we have two lovely daughters Seirian Fflyr and Elys Ffion. We live in a small village near Cardiff in Wales, part of the United Kingdom.

I've been a "Triumph Man" since the early 1990's. I've owned Stags and GT6's but my real passion is for the Triumph Spitfire. After a brief flirtation with a 1978 Spitfire 1500 I moved quite quickly to the early "roundtail cars". In 1996 I bough a 1 owner 1967 Spitfire MK3. She had done 37,000 miles from new and was in very very good original condition. I still have her and she's now on 50,000 miles! Coulour has changed a bit from White/Red to Conifer Green/Black and she's been tuned to SAH Stage 1 specification with a Type 26 cam; Twin Stromberg 150CD carbs on an SAH Tuning inlet manifold; a stainless steel extractor exhaust manifold and straight through exhaust has also been added and the whole things is topped of with an SAH Alloy Rocker Cover and an "SAH Tuned" badge on the front wing.

As much as I love my 1 owner MK3 this Blog is really going to be about the restoration of My 1962 Triumph Spitfire4 - FC316. A very early car all the features in place unique to the very early cars. I'll note these in coming blogs. I've owned her for nearly a year now and managed to trace the original owner; get the original registration number re-activated. Her story is taht she was bought following a visit to the launch of the car at the Earls Court Motor show (the original owner having attended the launch!) and was used for a few years before being sold on - She ended up in Devon, England in 1975 and was never used again - so off road since then! To help with the Restoration I've bought a 1963 Donor Car FC14255, which has a rebuilt engine and gearbox as well as some bits and pieces that again are pretty hard to come by - it was a steal too! Anyway thats enough for now. I'll post photos in the coming blog entries!