Ian F
UltimaDork
10/10/14 7:29 a.m.
Preamble:
On Weds, I got home from work early and decided to replace the rear brakes on my minivan. It did not go well. Long story short: my '79 Spitfire (purchased through this forum) has been pressed into daily driver duty for my ~100 mile round-trip commute and other tasks for the next week while I wait for parts to arrive.
Day 1 (Thurs).
I go through my normal morning routine and go to leave. Since the broken van is blocking the main driveway (and garage door), the Spitfire is parked outside in the second driveway. The engine starts easily, but isn't happy about moving with only a few seconds of warm-up. The wipers work well enough to clear the dew off the windshield, but the defroster only provides a small slit of visiblity for the first few minutes. Otherwise, the drive to work is uneventful. Fortunately, the car has overdrive, so I can keep up with ~70 mph traffic for the 20 miles of I-95 that I'm on. I get to work early enough to get a spot in the garage.
Going home starts out well enough, but about 1/3 the way into the drive, the engine starts missing. Ca Ca... idles ok, but feels like it's running on 3 cylinders under load - the complete opposite of the issues I had a couple of weeks ago where the car ran fine under load, but wouldn't idle... Anyway, I limp it along for another 15 miles before I finally saying "Enough!" and pulling into the rest area on the PA side off I-95. I pop the bonnet and quickly find the source of my problem - one of the plug leads popped off the distributor cap. I put the wire back on, the car starts up easily and the final 15 miles home are uneventful.
Lesson learned: if the car starts running "off" pull off ASAP and investigate. It's an old car and weird things happen.
Day 2 (Fri).
Learning my lesson from Thurs, I modified my morning routine to start the car a few minutes before I leave and let it idle with the defroster on. The car is much happier starting out and I can see out the windshield from the get-go. The rest of the drive to work is uneventful, other than stopping for gas. 4.88 gallons over ~121 miles - 24.75 mpg. Not great, but I know from experience running on 3 cylinders will kill gas mileage. Plus, we (Spitfire group) established during the Lime Rock trip the carb is running a bit rich.
(at work now - update when I get home tonight - big plans for the weekend! 
)
Aahhh the joys of a British sports car.
Heh... I daily'd my Spitfire for six months with no taillights or headlights... and if I timed things right I could get home just before the sun went down. Fun times.
I know that defogger slit experience well. I daily a '67 Volvo 122 and it takes a good 5 or 6 miles for the engine to really warm up enough for the defogger to work. Perhaps it's time for the yearly "clean the trash out of the heater core and lube the blower motor".
Tom Suddard wrote:
Heh... I daily'd my Spitfire for six months with no taillights or headlights... and if I timed things right I could get home just before the sun went down. Fun times.
Been there with my Opel GT years ago. Parked it for a while for this and brake locking issue. Which led to a complete restoration of the car and now all that works. Now if only I can keep the instrument lights working. 
Ian F
UltimaDork
10/10/14 7:48 p.m.
Well, the car made it home after work, although somewhat begrudgingly. I think I have a cooling issue I need to look into at some point. Or the 1" square of heat shield I cut out to make the throttle work 100% was more important than it appeared to be. Essentially, once the car gets hot, it doesn't want to idle in traffic. Long runs at hwy speeds are fine, but when I come to a stop and air flow slows, the temp gauge starts creeping up and it wants to stall. And it's not like it's that hot right now - temps today never got above the mid-60's.
Regardless, I went with "plan C" and bought a combination caliper/bracket from my FLAPS so I could get the minivan back into service. The other option was to mount my bike rack to the hardtop of the Spit and drive down to DC tomorrow. If I could 100% guarantee a nice easy drive down on Sat and home on Sun - no problem. But as anyone who's driven around DC knows, that is a bet only a fool would make. So I took the bracket I needed from the caliper and installed it on the van. When I get the replacement bracket I ordered from Rockauto, I'll reassemble the caliper and return it. Not really something I relish doing, but unfortunately that's the hand I was dealt.
On the plus side, it was fun to use the Spitfire as a DD, even if only for a couple of days. The weather was pretty much perfect for a Spit with a hardtop (cool) and I think once I get the cooling system sorted and maybe some luxuries like a radio installed, I'll try this experiment again.
This is pretty much my jam in the Scirocco right now. Some idiot (me) took the HVAC system apart at the beginning of the summer when an interior refresh was being performed. "It's summer" I said, "nobody needs a heater in summer, I'll have plenty of time to get it back together before it's needed."
I didn't.
I think it is great to drive a classic as a daily driver, but I have found the hard way, that you really need 2 classics just in case. 
wbjones
UltimaDork
10/11/14 5:42 a.m.
Burrito Enthusiast wrote:
This is pretty much my jam in the Scirocco right now. Some idiot (me) took the HVAC system apart at the beginning of the summer when an interior refresh was being performed. "It's summer" I said, "nobody needs a heater in summer, I'll have plenty of time to get it back together before it's needed."
I didn't.
I'm glad that stuff works for you … I've found it to be a total waste of money 
Very enjoyable blog Ian!
What carb(s?) are you running on the 1500?
If you are in need of a spare engine for some reason I may be able to accommodate (out of a Midget).
sobastrace wrote:
I think it is great to drive a classic as a daily driver, but I have found the hard way, that you really need 2 classics just in case.
Preferably 2 of the same make and model, so that your spare parts stash doesn't need to be twice as large.
Ian F
UltimaDork
10/13/14 5:48 a.m.
paranoid_android74 wrote:
Very enjoyable blog Ian!
What carb(s?) are you running on the 1500?
If you are in need of a spare engine for some reason I may be able to accommodate (out of a Midget).
Thanks!
Right now it's a OE-ish Zenith Stromberg, either with a manual choke conversion or being an older manual choke carb. I'm debating between getting a dual SU carb set-up or building a Megasquirt set-up like a couple of my friends have. Might be interested in another spare engine... already have one (came with the car), but you can never have too many, can you? 
Of course, I have no idea where I'd put it...
Awesome!
This is now my favorite thread.
NOHOME
SuperDork
11/13/14 9:36 a.m.
