How to remove & refit front coil springs (without using Spring Compressor or special tools) on Austin Healey Frogeye Sprite, MG Midget, Austin A30, Austin A35 or Austin A40 Farina. Also swapping disc brakes for drum brakes. No.7 in series of films covering the build-up of "Gaps" the famously scruffy Frogeye from a bare, stripped-out shell and then running the car as my regular, every-day Driver..
This car, "Gaps" is a well-known & well-used 1958 Austin Healey Frogeye Sprite. Used as a road & race-car for many years and mechanically improved by previous owners. Long-standing bodywork issues (the name "Gaps" comes from its famously-bad panel-fit!) combined with creeping rust meant that the car's well-sorted & competitive mechanicals deserved a better shell - in the form of an existing solid car, stripped for restoration many years ago. The remaining Donor Shell, rusty and with untidy welding & repairs from its time on the track - is not economically viable to restore back to "perfect". With its many issues, this shell also wouldn't justify a conventionally-sourced set of replacement parts - mechanicals, wheels & suspension, interior, instruments & dash, glass, weather-protection, etc.
Normally, rusty "donor-cars" like this would simply be robbed of chassis-tags to be used as basis of a new-build around a new-shell. But we have decided to keep "Gaps" the Sprite alive - and to bring it back to life & back On-The-Road in an unconventional way and on a near- zero budget, using old parts sourced for minimal cost and creative & innovative repairs. As well as being genuinely necessary for financial reasons, this approach was also philosophically essential to making this fabulously-characterful car economically viable and worth saving in any rational sense. There are two additional twists to the tale. The first is that, as the replacement shell was prepared and re-built, the parts were removed from the donor over several months - and during that time "Gaps" would be kept up-and-running as an approximately-complete and fully-functional motor-car (this was important - as we knew that if she was completely stripped-bare, we would just be left with a pile of rusty-rubbish that would be practically & economically beyond any sensible idea of re-building!) The final twist is that, despite the issues, the financial constraints and the age of the machine, this car was to be used daily throughout - as a daily-driver, commuting some 50 miles every day to-and-from work... Follow the series of films as almost every part of the car is removed, replaced or re-made - wheels, suspension, instruments & dash, windscreen frame, interior, etc. etc. For more information on "Gaps" the Sprite itself and the philosophy of the project, watch my Project Introduction Film, No.1
