Steve's Triumph Spitfire 1600
The ongoing saaaaaaga
Turret Brace:
​I haven't seen anything written on turret braces for these swaps. Seeing as we removed the Spitfire engine mounts we lost the natural brace provided by the engine and there was no way I’d just leave it that way.
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Whatever I did I wanted it to be easy to remove and install and something that wouldn’t need to be removed for basic maintenance like a belt change.
​Originally I had hoped for something simple that would be a pretty direct route side to side. After adding the cooling system and intake bits I was forced to go more forward.
It had to be an angled piece of steel, 90 deg (or box would work of course) for the length of the brace, not just thin plate, otherwise it would just flex and be rather useless.
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I did consider a Turnbuckle or such in the middle for adjustment, especially if one wants to change the number of shims under the inner part of the Turret, but thought more rigidity in the lateral plane would only help keep the Turret from twisting on Bump. Pretty insignificant, but that's how I did it.
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​It ended up a little more complex than expected, but I really like the ease of maintenance around it. Took some time but was pretty fun to do.
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​I first rough cut a piece of scrap Melamine to mock up and ensure there was enough real estate in there.
​I then made plates that fit in the cavity at the front of the turrets in the same area as the original engine mounts. Bolted those into existing holes (2 for the old Engine Mounts and one for the Upper Wishbone Bolt) then modified my mock-up board to establish general dimensions and mark the horizontal lines on the plates.
​With the forward distance established I test fit a few fin-shaped bits to get the main piece out in front. With their position figured out I welded two small brackets to the plates and drilled some holes to bolt through. Again for ease of removal I took a few minutes to weld the bolts on the underside.
I drilled the fins as well and mounted them before measuring, marking, and cutting my cross-member to size and shape.
Clamped the pieces together so I could remove them and welded it up.
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Originally I put 4 bolts on each side, spaced in a way to allow no interference from each other; 4 proved to be overkill so I only used the 3 fasteners that were easiest to get at.
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​In the end I did have to cut a tiny relief in one fin to increase space between it and the Intake Resonance Chamber but other than that the fit is decent.
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One day I may redo this in aluminum or with a slightly different design, maybe something boxed in for a cleaner look, but not sure when I might find that more important than having fun some other way.
In Hindsight…
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While designing this I wanted to have good access to the plates to weld on the 90’s so making them short and with bolts welded on was my solution. It was also a little easier to build piece by piece.
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Looking back once the entire thing was completed, I could see that the fasteners I used to attach the two plates to the Turrets would be pretty easy to get to so an easier way would have been to just weld the entire brace right to my first plates. A little less work, and almost as easy to remove.
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