piston rings for 1200?

Phil, before I bought this particular car, I had never seen any Triumph Spitfire or GT 6 without at least some rust, even back in the day when near new. When I saw the ad for this car which claimed "rust free" I just had to go see it on impulse, not because I particularly wanted a Spitfire..... The car lived its entire life in or near Redmond, Oregon, U.S.A., which is arid high desert. The only reason I bought it was because it truly is rust free..... pretty much everything else about the car was worn out, and the wiring harness had caught fire and burnt up, but mechanicals are so much nicer and easier to deal with than nasty rust..... oh, and I have no delusions of making my fortune with this rebuild, I am already in for a greater parts cost than the car could ever be sold for, and the motor/trans/overdrive rebuilds are not done yet.......

Paul LeClair
 
I like the 1970's Honda sports cars too Bob. I used to have one of these 1300 Coupe 9s back in about 1976. It was a lively little car - 4 x Keihin CV carbies, 115 HP @ 7300 rpm, and only weighed about as much as a Mini. I should have kept it.

honda1.jpg
 
One web page I found on buying Triumph Spitfires said you will only find rust forward of the firewall as the rest of the car has been covered in engine oil all it's life  :D :D :D
 
Dellortoman said:
I like the 1970's Honda sports cars too Bob. I used to have one of these 1300 Coupe 9s back in about 1976. It was a lively little car - 4 x Keihin CV carbies, 115 HP @ 7300 rpm, and only weighed about as much as a Mini. I should have kept it.

honda1.jpg
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YES, Yes....those were bloody fantastic for the era...a mate had one which he raced a couple of times. Did a 1 hour production race in which he had to retire as the cabin was full of smoke...took us a hour or so to work out that the cigarette lighter circuit had burnt out.
He was however well in front of all the mini Coopers at the time.

Bloody spitfires are like Jags - only the engine bay and prop shaft tunnel will stay rust free.....
 
I've never seen one of those 1300s before, as far as I know we only got the Honda 600s and 800s in the UK. 115bhp was an impressive output from a 1300 in the seventies. Impecunious British youths were driving Escorts, Imps and Minis back then.
 
and a mate of mine saw the possibilities of the S800 car engine in a race sidecar, which was then very successfuly taken up his mate San Stevens, who won many times on it, before he became a two stroke man.
CLEM
 
drikko said:
One web page I found on buying Triumph Spitfires said you will only find rust forward of the firewall as the rest of the car has been covered in engine oil all it's life  :D :D :D
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Hi Drikko

when I went to register the Spitfire here after a comprehensive 13 month rebuild of pretty much everything except the motor, the car failed its first government inspection due to .......... oil leaks...... and it didn't get me anywhere attempting to point out that they ALL leak like that.

to get it through it's required  government mechanical inspection, I took it home, jacked it up from the drivers side so the passenger wheels stayed on the ground while I lifted the drivers side wheels so high the car was about to tip over. Then I saturated the undercarriage and driveline with oil stripper, let it sit for a while, hosed everything off thoroughly with a 3,200 psi gas engine powered pressure washer, lowered the car back to the ground, and drove directly back to the nearby government inspection facility.... where they had to pass it as it was only dripping water..... it was dripping oil again by the time I got it home, but it passed!!

the car really was a piece of shite as it left the factory, these days it can be upgraded to the point where it is less of a piece of shite..... I will be using high quality after market Payen gaskets for the motor rebuild, as well as a couple of tubes of Hylomar M just to be traditional..... (bomb)  ;)

Paul LeClair
 
Speaking as someone who was brought up with these cars I don't remember them having a reputation of leaking oil, or at least no more than any other car. Triumph motorcycles definitely leaked oil... Triumph cars ? No I don't think so.
And whilst we're on the subject I've owned plenty of Jags; Mk11, E Type,  XJ 12, XJS, XJ40 and although they were by no means fault free, I can't remember any of them dropping a spot of oil on the drive.
 
The main reason why my 64 Bonnie dropped oil as I found after the 2nd engine rebuild was the fact that the engine breather pipe came out pointing straight down behind the countersharft sprocket,right up high and unseen.They made them so any burp dumped oil in front of the rear tyre.I added a hose and ran it over the rear guard and no more oil,good gaskets and sealer helped.Later models had it come out in a more normal spot.
 
bob said:
Speaking as someone who was brought up with these cars I don't remember them having a reputation of leaking oil, or at least no more than any other car. Triumph motorcycles definitely leaked oil... Triumph cars ? No I don't think so.
And whilst we're on the subject I've owned plenty of Jags; Mk11, E Type,  XJ 12, XJS, XJ40 and although they were by no means fault free, I can't remember any of them dropping a spot of oil on the drive.
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Hi Bob

when I am done the Spit won't leak, problem was, as with many other old cars, the extent of "deferred maintenance", old dried out gaskets, etc.

I have also had a number of Jags over the years, still have the 92 XJ 40 I bought new for my now late wife, and have sacrificed two other XJ 40's  for parts to keep the 92 pristine and on the road. Also had a 420 for a long time, and have had a couple of E types before they were worth anything, yet another case of selling too soon... My XJ 12 was the only one that was really problematic, cramped hot engine bay, very high fuel line pressure with rubber fuel lines, mine burnt to the ground from an under hood fire as so many of them did.

Paul LeClair
 
Those little Hondas are great...sat in one at a show a couple of years ago in the field next to Clems gaff, lovely and plenty of room  for my 6 foot 2.wish I'd bought it...just 5k and it was mint.
Nick 7
 
Paul, Your particular case of Jagitis sounds as bad as mine used to be! As I recall the main thing which empties your pockets on old Jags [apart from the obvious one of fuel consumption] is the amount of rubber void bush mountings on the various sub assemblies which often need replacing. Very labour intensive...
 
bob said:
Paul, Your particular case of Jagitis sounds as bad as mine used to be! As I recall the main thing which empties your pockets on old Jags [apart from the obvious one of fuel consumption] is the amount of rubber void bush mountings on the various sub assemblies which often need replacing. Very labour intensive...
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Hi Bob

yeah, last major job like that was dropping the entire rear suspension out of the 92 XJ 40 as a unit to swap out the diff, dis assembly of the rear suspension, sand blast and paint all the bits, replacing all the various and numerous bushings, most replaced with poly bushings as appropriate, swap the diff for a rebuilt posi unit, then re assemble and re install in the car, took me about twenty five hours done at home without a proper garage car lift, a proper car garage lift is presently on my wish list.....

there is no way you can run an older Jag unless you do most or all of the work yourself, to pay a garage to swap the diff and rebuild the rear suspension would cost more than the entire present value of the car, sadly.

Paul LeClair
 
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