Further investigations of the Spitfire shell are revealing more of its history. Currently this feels more like archeology than restoration.
The first thing is that there's something odd about the bulkhead
No, not the massive dents either side on the ends of the sills, I already knew about those but look more closely. See where the holes for the steering column come through... yes, holes, plural, there's one on each side!
Having noticed that it's easy to spot that there are holes for left-hand drive pedal mountings too albeit they're obstructed by the battery box. Which leads on to looking under the bulkhead (a rotating stand makes this so easy!) where it's obvious that both the battery box and the mounting plates for the master cylinders have been replaced. Those are both notorious rust spots on a Spitfire so it didn't strike me as odd that they'd been replaced previously but now it looks like they were probably replaced as part of a left-to-right-hand drive conversion at some point in the past.
This is further supported by the remains of the steering column support still welded under the bulkhead on the passenger side. See that plate next to the big round hole?
The first thing is that there's something odd about the bulkhead
No, not the massive dents either side on the ends of the sills, I already knew about those but look more closely. See where the holes for the steering column come through... yes, holes, plural, there's one on each side!
Having noticed that it's easy to spot that there are holes for left-hand drive pedal mountings too albeit they're obstructed by the battery box. Which leads on to looking under the bulkhead (a rotating stand makes this so easy!) where it's obvious that both the battery box and the mounting plates for the master cylinders have been replaced. Those are both notorious rust spots on a Spitfire so it didn't strike me as odd that they'd been replaced previously but now it looks like they were probably replaced as part of a left-to-right-hand drive conversion at some point in the past.
This is further supported by the remains of the steering column support still welded under the bulkhead on the passenger side. See that plate next to the big round hole?
Here's the drivers side for comparison. The bit attached on the passenger side is clearly part of that support bracket.
The striking thing about all this though is that the holes on both sides of the bulkhead appear to be neat, clean cuts and look as though they've been there from the factory. That column support looks original too which leads me to wonder what's going on here. As far as I know Triumph made bulkheads in either left hand drive or right hand side but they were never ambidextrous. If someone has welded together the drivers side from one of each kind at some point then I haven't yet found the join.
So there's a mystery. At least some extra holes aren't too much of a problem for restoring the shell. Of more concern is that when the master cylinder mounts and the battery box have been replaced it's been done by cutting out the old ones, dropping in the replacement and overlap welding the new plate on the top of the bulkhead. This is obvious from underneath but the top is actually quite tidy in those areas which I suspect might mean the top of the bulkhead has a lot of filler in it.
There's some more investigation to be done in the bulkhead area I think.
In related matters two huge boxes were delivered the other day with numerous panels and repair sections in them. For fun I laid them all out roughly in order. Looking at this, I'm starting to wish I hadn't!
In fact I'm starting to wonder whether this project is such a good idea after all... Eek!
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