Workshop stuff

I have had a break from building engines this week and have been back in the main workshop working on customers cars. We have a daily driver Spitfire 1500 in for a clutch, gearbox, and wiper problems. Wiper problem easily sorted with a new motor park switch, the wipers had continued to work long after they had been switched off, so the new park switch cured that. The passenger arm and blade had been stationary while the drives side worked perfectly. Probably something to do with the broken park switch enabling the poor thing to keep dragging accross a bone dry screen had led to the spline wearing out in the arm, a new arm cured that. The gearbox/clutch issues were interesting! The gearbox turned out to be a single rail out of a Dolomite lacking the facility to fit the two Spitfire type 'bobbin' type mounts. The previous 'mechanic' who had fitted this had simply ground off the studs off the top of the bobbins so that the gearbox would rest on them but not be bolted to the car at any point! The clutch driven plate had self destructed with a couple of the coil springs being found in various parts of the clutch cover, and bellhousing. A new three piece clutch, and a reconditioned gearbox and all is well. Only thing left to do now is a carb waxstat to solid jet convesion, a quick tune up, and good to go.
In between jobs on the above 1500 I have been prepping another Spitfire 1500 for MOT after a long period of storage. So far a terminally flat battery, some stale petrol, a dry clutch master cylinder (replenished and so far folding fluid, crosses fingers!), and a side light bulb is all that's obvious after a quick look. It's booked in for MOT later today so another once over this morning before I take it down is on the cards.
We have to clear a few of these Spitfires close to the weekend as there is a Stag coming in for some insurance work on Friday. I have ordered the panelwork from Heritage and it should be here on our normal delivery on Thursday so it should be fairly straight forward. It's a nice one owner, low mileage example so hopefully I wont find any horror stories when I start removing the front end.