I didn't think it was this bad...| Triumph Spitfire Restoration - Part 61 

I had the same problem with my 1978 1500. The DPO said it only needed a bit of fiberglass when I picked up the car and noted the rust on the shelf. The real fun came when I discovered that the DPO had replaced the battery box by hammering the left and right flanges up and hammering the battery box down between the gussets and then welding the box in place by welding the flanges directly to the gussets. There's a rubber flap the goes over the drain hole in the airbox that your DPO glassed over. Good luck finding one of those.

You're braver than I... I thought my car had a lot of rust! You should definitely invest in a bead roller, they're well worth it.

You can buy repair panels for the scuttle area you are working on or find another tub you can remove the scuttle from.

Sad to see that, but Like JP said, the car is in the right hands now. I have watched all of the videos of work to date, but will be paying closer attention to how this section proceeds.

I feel your pain... you've invested so much effort now you have to forge ahead. I've spent 50 plus years in and around these cars mostly as a hobby and something to drive they were totally disposable back in the day. Fibreglass was for many years the cheap fix just to keep it on the road another year. It was never the plan to restore one of these because a few hundred dollars would buy us another decent on. Damn I wish I had a few of these we scrapped just to get the wire wheels or overdrive trans out of it. In later years I called on body shops for Keystone after market panels which then merged with LKQ and was able to close up observe how they would approach such a repair I once saw a "see through" TR-4 on a lift that looked like grandma's old lace table cloth ! Wild. In this case finding a scrap spit tub with toasted floors dirt cheap and cut out the upper cowl to use in it's entirety would be ideal it's odd to see the lace problem on any of these upper cowls ( battery box excepted ) but here it is. 99.99999 % of these beasts up here in Ontario Canada have floor problems if they still have floors at all...road salt and driving them 365 as our regular transport no to mention all the water that collects on the floors of a rag top the carpets rarely dried eventually out rusting out the floors. In then end the Tin Worm always wins .

Hi Steve, don't rush into this repair until you have done some research on other fabricators here on RU-vid. Check out "Trev's Blog" and "Make it Custom", Karl from the latter shows how to create the bead rolled edge look without a bead roller and also how to make repair panels as does Trev. They are both really great and helpful guys. Kind regards Paul

I haven't seen many bulkheads quite THAT bad! It's difficult to tell on camera, but the rolled edge looks to be okay so rather than fabricating the entire panel could you cut just inside the rolled edge and and work on the flat piece as that will give you an accurate outline to work to? For the pressed ribs, do you still have the old floors as you might be able to salvage some of the ribs from those and modify them to fit? Good luck, and I love your positive attitude.

i've never seen a video where you looked more pissed. all in humor of course. but damn that was a lot of rust. fiberglass--- hate when ppl do that.

Dang. I thought mine was bad. I ended up using a donor for that full piece. I've got a good airbox. I'll pm you

Ouch. That's pretty bad. But, cut it up into manageable parts and it's not much words then what you've already been fixing. Looking forward to watching you kick ass at this area, too!

Good luck mate. You're a braver man than I :) That said, you absolutely should replace the heater core, and I'll tell you why: You are doing such an outstanding job on this restoration, that chances are, this car will now outlive you, and you never know where it will end up at when your widow sells it. It MAY end up North somewhere and someone is gonna need that heater and IF you don't install it... they're gonna say what a shit job of restoration :( Do the heater mate. Compared to what you're facing, it's child's play!

Love finding random holes... lol

The British company that makes the Spitfire panels from factory tooling could have made the entire panel for the front shelve available in US and UK versions, but they decided to just provide a patch panel for the brake area and only the UK version, so don't blame Rimmer's as it wasn't their decision.

Oddly enough, my Spitfire came from Florida by way of New Jersey.

I will no longer be bored with this type of car, which is too old to have been made with very poor quality sheet metal against corrosion. Your bodywork will continue to oxidize at the heart of the metal because corrosion has penetrated between the metal grain boundaries. For the good it would be necessary to redo the entire front with a corten steel sheet which protects itself against corrosion (passenger train cars were made with this quality of steel. Or take a good weldable quality and have it galvanized .

Best of luck on fixing that mess .... if you do you move on to Jedi level .

Sir, I have started a 1977 truimph spitfire restoration. Could you tell me how many Body spacers between the frame and body. Thank you

Car's lucky it ended up where it did. Many others would have just broken it up.

Sent you a message on FB. May be able to help you out with the part you are needing.

Yikes.