We simply couldn’t resist this lovely little ’74 Mk IV Spitfire and we’re sure she’s going to turn out to be something really special.
The car is in primer and almost ready for paint but will need quite a lot of work to get her running and looking her best. The engine turns freely and looks complete with all electricals and carburettors although they will be removed and serviced before being refitted and balanced correctly.
The interior is scruffy and the seat covers will need to be replaced but most of it is present. There is a new dashboard with the car and the door cards look good.
With good shut lines and a solid chassis the first major job will be to get her running. The body will then need quite a lot of work to prepare it for paint before rebuilding her back to her former glory.
The carpets were pretty manky so they came out together with the seats which will be recovered. Removal of the carpet revealed a very solid floor. Some welding has been done at some point and there is no rust.
With fresh fuel in the float bowls and a new battery she started first time! Fresh fuel in the tank also started to come through after a moment or two. There was a fuel leak from the carb to carb fuel pipe but the next job is to clean and service the carbs, float bowls, air filters and inlet manifold so we will address that then.
The carburettors, air filters, float bowls and inlet manifold looked great after a mini service so we put together a little video so show you what we did. Just click the image below:
We’ve taken a look at the rest of the engine bay to assess how we can improve the look of it:
The first improvement of course was to pop the serviced carbs back on. They look great and with the new fuel pipes and the cleaned and painted inlet manifold, this area of the engine bay has definitely been improved.
Back onto the body…..
Prior to our ownership, some bright spark who intended to ready the car for paint, has masked the rear lights, the sidelights, the petrol cap, the rubbers on the top of the doors, the door handles and other bits and bobs when it would have been far easier, and would have enabled a far better job, to have removed those items instead. So we now have to scrape off all that masking and do it properly. Not as easy as it sounds when the masking has been on for months and refuses to come off without a fight!
The bulkhead on an old Spitfire is often very grotty. It’s a very difficult area to clean, there are very small spaces which collect dirt and brake & clutch fluid leaks make a real mess of the paint. Our’s is also horrible but in order to paint it later, we need it to be much neater. Here’s the first of three videos to show how we went about sorting it out:
Watch what we did next to get it to filler primer stage:
Another job we’ve started to tackle on this car is the dash, or lack of one. Fortunately though the car did come with a brand new dash, handmade by a guy I’ve used before and whom I know does an extremely good job. The dash was in the boot of the car and so all I have to do is work out where all the dangling wires behind the dash go and then fit the new dash. Here’s a quick introduction to the project:
After working out what all the wires do (using wiring diagrams online and in the Haynes manual) I was able to fit the new dash!
While scrabbling around under the car I noticed the steering gaiters were shot. Severely split in multiple places. To get them off you can simply cut them off but to get new ones on you need to remove the track rod ends, so we may as well take those off to ease the removal. On removing the track rod ends I found those to be completely shot too! Take a look:
While we wait for the new parts to come, we took a look at the shocks and springs. Yikes! Pretty manky! Here we take them off together with the front brakes ready for a mini service:
Here we put the cleaned and painted front suspension back on the car:
Eventually the track rod ends arrived and I was able to finish off the front steering. It’s looking a lot better than it did before we started!
Back to the body. The panel gaps on this car were pretty awful but we’ve managed to make them all quite small and even. The biggest issue was the gap between the front edge of the doors and the bonnet. We moved the bonnet back a little with some washers in front of the bonnet hinge and also added a small slither of metal along the rear edge of the bonnet. We’ve also raised and levelled the sill where the bonnet meets it, pulled the bottom edge of the bonnet out a bit to meet the sill better and adjusted the doors slightly to bring the bottom edges inline with the sills. Everything looks pretty good now.
You will notice in the image below that the red car’s bonnet is now yellow! Watch the video to see why.
We spent quite a long time sorting the panel gaps but feel we can tackle this now on pretty much any Spitfire! This will be a handy skill because they’re almost always pretty awful! I’ll post a separate video all about this at some point.
The other area we had to sort was a very rotten windscreen section. There was a lot of filler here which needed to be removed and the rotten metal replaced with a new section from a donor body. Here’s how it went on:
She’s now very nearly ready for paint at least on the outside. There’s still a bit to do under the bonnet and in the boot which will be painted at the same time. We’ll paint her with the bonnet off but the doors and possibly boot lid on.
With the outside of the car ready for paint, we need to make the underside of the boot lid and bonnet ready too. With oil, dirt, rust and shiny paint in the wrong colour, there’s plenty to do!
Once the body was ready to be painted we inflated our temporary booth and treated the little MkIV to a couple of coats of filler primer….
…which was then sanded ready for the next coat which will be grey primer.
After sanding with 600 grit wet and dry the car was painted with grey primer, which again was sanded in the same way ready for the base colour. then it was time for the red base colour. This went on beautifully with our DeVilbiss DV1 base gun. Take a look at the video below.
The next job was to add the clear coat but it was around then that we moved to our new premises in Moira where we were going to have a paint booth/oven installed. It therefore made sense to wait until our new paint booth was ready before we painted the clear coat. While we were waiting I took a look at the right hand bonnet catch on the body as I’d noticed it didn’t sit quite right.
Further investigation showed that much of the upper A post section, where the bonnet catch was attached, was very thin metal with several bad repairs. I did try to weld in a new section around the bonnet catch that I’d taken from a spare body but the poor metal meant I just ended up chasing holes all over the place! So the only way to fix it properly was to replace the whole upper A post panel.
Of course all this work to the ‘A’ post meant redoing the door gaps. Thankfully we’re getting rather good at this now and really good door gaps were achieved!
The other part of the car that needed attention was at the front of the chassis where it splits into ‘Y’ shaped crossmembers as it attaches to the the front bumper. I was going to look at these areas later but as we had to wait for the booth to be fitted it made sense to sort them now.
The issue with both sides was that someone had covered the gaps between the legs of the ‘Y’ shapes with patches on the top and bottom. My guess was that they were hiding serious rust and with the patches removed I could see that was the case.
The only option was to completely remove the rusty crossmembers and repair any holes in the chassis. With that done brand new crossmembers were trial fitted, tweaked, painted and then welded into place before being painted again in position.
So this ’74 MkIV Spitfire is now ready and waiting for the paint booth to be completed!
OMG! Finally, in April of 2023, 4 months after paying a deposit for the booth, it was finally in and working. So after a little practice on a spare Spitfire bonnet, it was time to get the ’74 MkIV into the booth for a second attempt at painting it.
Last time I painted the car, I did it in an inflatable paint booth. The primer and red base coat went on OK but I had real problems with the clear coat, namely the dreaded ‘Fish Eyes’. These annoying little spots are caused by little specs of dust, dirt or even water, oil spots or silicon in the air line or on the car. I had a lot and I think they were probably caused by me not making sure everything was spotlessly clean at every stage of the process. This of course wasn’t easy when the booth was erected in a muddy field, often in a rush because I knew I had to get the car painted and the booth back down again before the end of each day.
In my new booth, on my practice bonnet, I had zero Fish Eyes and so figured I was safe to try painting this car again!
The first job was to wash the car down to remove the dust it had accumulated while sitting in the shop and then all the panels were sanded with 400 grit wet & dry. This was actually a very quick process as I’d already sanded most of the panels already.
Then it got a more thorough wash to remove the sanding residue ready to go into the booth. The bonnet will be painted off the car and so this was removed at this stage.
Once dry the car was wheeled into the booth for paint! It was raised up onto axle stands to help make painting the lower areas easier.
The primer went on really well. It was then wet sanded with 400 grit ready for the 2k top coat.
She’s red! And she looks great. I did have an issue to start with as I first painted the door jambs and the overspray on the panels ruined the resulting finish on them. I had to sand the panels down again and redo them. Next time I won’t do the jambs first! Anyway the second time the results were fabulous and it won’t need much sanding prior to buffing. Some areas, such as the bulkhead and door jambs, won’t need sanding at all they’re that shiny!
Here’s the car after wet sanding. I used 1000, then 1500, then 2000 but in future also I’ll add 3000 grit at the end. It’s a shame to have to sand shiny panels and make them dull like this but it’s a necessary step to a really good finish.
Then it was polishing time. Here the car has had its first polish with a wool pad and it looks great but we will do it again with a finer foam pad a little later.
Putting the car back together started with the engine bay and sorting all the wiring. We have had this car running and so it wasn’t too tricky to put most things back where they were. Some parts of the wiring loom received new black tape and the suspension got a freshen up. We had already done the suspension but it got a light dusting of red overspray from the painting I did in the inflatable booth so I’ve had to do it all again! Lesson learned. I will give the engine block a degrease and the chassis will get a coating of chassis black.
The engine here is starting to come together with new brake lines, the clutch and brake masters on together with the inlet manifold, carbs and air filters.
Keep checking back to see how we get on!