Welcome to Classic Car Magazine

December 2008 Latest update. With cars being symmetrical I have been doing lots of work on the passenger side of the car but as it is almost identical to the work done on the drivers side and I have not had time to put up the details and photos as they are basically the same. Over Christmas I hope to put this right and as well as doing plenty of work on the car I will add the details of the work done.

17th June 08 Trial fitting the rear wing. Not much progress for a few weeks due to being away on holiday but I came with renewed enthusiasm to get some work done on the Spitfire. With all the local repairs done to the wheel arches I could now return to fitting the inner wing repair panel...More

2nd June 08 Durham Club Beamish 2008 show. What a day, the forecast was for wet and for once unfortunately they were correct and it never stopped raining all day. This did not dampen spirits..More

1st June 08 Rear Repair of Rear Wheel Arch in boot floor area. It took a lot longer to repair the rear arch front section and when I moved onto the back section as usual the metal was in worse condition than I first thought. I thought the area would just require a brush up and then perhaps so very small local repairs, how wrong can you be....More

1st May 08 Spitfire out of the garage. Don't get too excited the Spitfire is not finished yet it just that the garage was in such a mess that I had to clean it up and give it a good tidy as I was sick of tripping over things on the floor....More

15th Apr 08 Boot Floor Removal . Before I could cut out the boot floor I had to repair the passenger side inner wing the same as the drivers side. This was so that I could use the boot floor to set the height of the inner wing repair panel .. ...More

7th April 08 Rear Repair of Rear Wheel Arch complete and removal of passenger wing. It took a lot longer to repair the rear arch and the box section and then the lower wheel arch had to be replaced as it has to be taken out to repair the box section. This repair was quite complex..More

24th Mar 08 Rear Repair of Rear Wheel Arch. They say the best made plans of mice (well they do in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy). I thought over the Easter weekend I would get the boot floor, the rear valance removed and the rear arch repair panel fitted. The was unit I trial fitted the rear arch repair and found that although it fit well there was some fresh air where there should have been steel...MORE

18th Mar 08 Removal and Repair of Rear Inner Wing Quarter Panel. The last bog entry had me cutting off the rear wing and finding that what lay underneath was a lot worse than I expected. I thought I would just need to change the rear wing and perhaps some local repairs to the inner wheel arch and the lower inner wing where it meets the boot floor. It turned out I needed to buy more....

5th Mar 08 Back to the bodywork. The work on the cylinder head has been a welcome distraction and been a nice change but eventually I had to go back to the body work. I finished off a couple of welds and then decided that the rear wings were the next to come off....more

26th Feb 08 Cylinder head complete. After the cylinder head was polished and cleaned up it was washed to get rid of any grinding paste and dirt. After the head was completely dry (put in front of fan heater for a couple of hours) the valves and the springs were put back together ready to go back on the engine.

24th Feb 08 Cylinder head port and polish! It has taken a long time to get to this stage and I am still not completely finished. I started out as a quick de coke of the cylinder head but ended up being a small exercise in polishing and porting..More

16th Feb 08 Tuning with a vacuum gauge. Although I wrote the article describing how to do this I had never actually tried it until this weekend. Wow, what a difference it made the MBG felt much more solid and lively. I was surprised how much I had to turn the distributor (timing must have been well out). To find out how I did it click here

8th Feb. 08 Fitting K&N filters to an MGB! This is a very simple performance improvement to make to your classic or even your modern car. Simply changing to K&N filters should give you an extra 5bhp at the wheels, to find out how I did it click here.

2nd Feb. 08 Cylinder head Strip! With the head off and the cylinder bores checked it was time to turn to the cylinder head itself. When first removed it did not look a pretty sight and looked very coked up. A quick dip in my parts washer and a good going over with a stiff nylon brush and the top of the cylinder head looked as good as new....More

26th Jan 08 Cylinder Head Removal When I bought the Spitfire it came with no history so I had no idea of the state of the engine, all I knew was that I did 2000 miles and there we no problems with the engine, gearbox and differential. I had an idea the car had been restored at some point and that the engine had been rebuilt but how many miles it had done since then was unknown. I was interested to get the cylinder head off to see if there is any wear in the bores and check the rest of the engine over....More

22nd Jan 08 Engine Strip! Back to work on the Spitfire at last. They say a change is as good as a rest. It feels like I have been doing the bodywork on the Spitfire for ages and I have, so now the shed is built I can start on some of the mechanical bits. For fun I decided to start by striping the engine... More

19th Jan 08 BATTERY FLAT AGAIN! Once again I have been thwarted by a flat battery, it was a nice day on Saturday so I thought I would get the MGB GT out for a run to keep it in shape but as soon as I turned the key I knew I would not be going anywhere... More

16th Jan 08:- SHED IS COMPLETE. Finally the shed is complete, it now has its electrics, flooring and is insulated with metal backed fiberglass insulation. It is so well insulated that last night it was very frosty so the roof of the shed was white. I was in the shed for over an hour with my heater on full blast.....More

blog/classic-car-blog-winter.html. Back to work and for once the weather forecasters get it right and 3 inches of snow falls overnight. The council hardly salts the main roads so housing and industrial estates have no chance of being done and they resemble ice rinks. My new Euro box a Vauxhall Vectra estate is a great car, it does its job very well but in the snow it is no better than a sledge. Even taking note of my winter driving tips I still managed to have 3 "brown trouser" moments on the way too and from work. The first happened only 100 yards from home, to get off our estate there is a gentle incline and on this particular morning was littered with abandoned BMW's that could not make it to the top with their low profile tyres, I just had to keep going and hope that I could get out at the top which luckily I could.........More

31st Dec 07:- MGB OUT FOR A SPIN. Finally we get a nice day and I can get my MGB GT out for a spin into the hills. I was pleased that it started without any problems and it ran beautifully. When you drive a Euro box every day it is a relief to get into a car that needs to be driven and is a pleasure to drive, if I did not have a company car then I think I would have to have a classic as an everyday car.

20th Dec 07:- NO PROGRESS ON SPITFIRE. Still no work on the Spitfire for at least a month due to working on the shed. It is mostly done now, electrics are in and it has been lined out with insulation and plywood panels so it should be nice and warm with my little heater.

17th Dec 07:- BATTERY PROBLEMS. What do they say, trouble always comes in threes. First it was the battery on my wife's MG ZS which started to have problems turning over on cold mornings so had to be replaced, then because the weather was has been so bad it has been impossible to get my MGB GT out so when eventually it was dry and the roads were not coating in salt we go the car started with a jump start. With it being the MGB and the batteries being behind the seats.....More

16th Dec 07:- SHED UP. Finally got the shed up, took all day from 8 o'clock until 4 o'clock to get the main structure up and weather tight and that was with my next door neighbor, my Dad and myself working flat out.

8th Dec 07:- Too wet and windy to put up shed

1st Dec 07:-My Dad has been very good and managed to treat most of the shed in treatment for me we are now just waiting for a nice day to put it up.

22nd Nov 07:- Shed arrived today in lots of large panels which I have started to give 2 coats of wood treatment before we build it.

10th Nov 07:-Previous visitors to the site will know that I am in the middle of a restoration project and you can see the progress so far in SPITFIRE RESTORATION. It is not easy restoring a car in a single garage with so many different parts to restore space is always at a premium so I ordered a big shed. This is of workshop size 13' by 7' so am looking forward to getting it and building it.

1st Nov 07:- Welcome to the start of my car blog, I hope you find it fun, informative and if nothing else entertaining listening to my rants on most things car related!