My wife never helped with working on the car (with the exception of making
coffee while I was working in the cold garage), but my kids all helped.
WARNING: I'm about to tell a short story about an adventure with my Spitfire
rebuild, don't read further if this offends you in any way!!!
After rebuilding my engine I was about to install it in the car. As I was
working on getting the engine hoist assembled, my son (who was about 3 at
the time) was tasked with wiping off the grease and dust from the valve
cover. As he was doing it, he saw some screws, washers and bolts lying on
the ground, and decided he would help. Before I knew what had happened, he
had 'installed' the hardware in the intake ports. Most of the bolts and
screws were big enough that they didn't go in very far, but I had to remove
the head to get the washers off the pistons. My most sincere apologies for
cluttering up the list with this, but I couldn't help it<g>
Mike Welch
'68 +/- Spitfire MkIII
'60 Jaguar MkII
http://home.turbopower.com/~mikew
>
> I went through the thrifty nickel religiously for about 6 months looking
for
> a second car, any car as long as it didn't cost over $1000.00. There
seemed
> to be an over abundance of VW's at the time so I figured that was what I
> would end up with. Eventually I had found THE car, it was a '69 Bug in
great
> shape. I went to see it several times, test drove it, the only problem is
> he wanted $1300.00, I didn't have it.....
> I went over to make one last attempt at haggling with him, when I came in
> sight of his house his neighbor was pushing a vehicle out of his garage,
it
> was a Spit, 1974. I hadnt seen one of these since about 1979 ( I lived on
> Guam for 7 years after that), it was at a dealer where my dad was picking
up
> our VW rabbit. My dad told me at the time many horror stories about the
> Spit breed as we waited for our car. Well, needless to say I couldn't
> remember any of them when I saw the guy pushing the Spit. Hell, I didn't
> even remember the VW after that. I stopped and admired the Spit, rough as
> it was, the guy came out and asked what I needed. I simply said "Id like
to
> take that off your hands, I have $1000 with me, how much do you want?" I
> didn't know if he wanted to sell it. He said "$1000???, it's yours" No
> kidding that was the whole conversation. I had to get a battery and some
> oil for the dash pot, but it fired up real nice. Seems he and his 30 yo
> wife had been restoring it when she died, he lost all interest in it after
> that. He had ATV wheels on the trunk when I saw it first. It took a
whole
> can of clutch fluid to get it home, bad slave cylinder.
>
> Here comes the wife part:
>
> I had my hand in a cast at the time we got it so I couldn't get to the
> cylinder to fix it. My wife said if I showed her how she would do it,
there
> we were side by side laying under the car and she was wrenching away. She
> pulled it, honed it, and rebuilt it alone..... The love of my life.
Since
> then she has trouble shot and repaired the gas gauge, when I got
frustrated
> installing the tranny in November she told me to take a break, when I got
> back outside it was in ,thanks to her. So, I bought her her own Spit a
1968
> MK III. She fixes it when it breaks and drives it like Mario Andretti.
She
> is the only Real Estate agent I know that sells houses from a 2 seat
> convertible.
>
> Sorry it was so long,
>
> N.A. Campiglia
> Abilene,TX
> http://camalott.com/~spitdrvr
> '74 Spitfire 1500
> '68 Spitfire MK III
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