Quite a few things have happened since the last post. Firstly, let's talk about the garage. You may have noticed from my previous pictures that the garage was turning into a bit of a mess. I really was lacking storage space. Not only this, but with a new baby and summer coming on, my wife was starting to get sick of her car being out in the Sun.
When we built our house, one of the best things we ever did was specify an extra 1.5m on the side of our garage (7.5m x 6m). So I came up with a hair-brain idea of fitting all 3 cars in our 2.5 car garage by making a shelf down one side that the GT40 would slide under (notice the new go-jacks in the picture above). Everyone told me that this would not work, so I was determined to prove them wrong. First, time to clean out the old shelves...
Thanks to my mate Jason, I picked up some old pallet racking from a warehouse that was down-sizing. Notice the middle leg has been removed (rear leg is braced to wall) and the height is about 40" + 2 ;-)
Yep, GT40 fits under there perfectly. Now we have heaps more storage room. I'm really happy with how it has turned out. Much better!
OK, so now the garage was re-arranged. I had an itching to get back into home brew. A home brew setup popped up cheap in the neighbourhood. Included a converted chest freezer, 4 kegs and a load of gas lines. So the conversation to the wife went like this.... "I'd like to get a home brew setup", the reply "if you can fit it in the garage it's a deal". Sounds like a challenge to me! Yep it fits (just)
Job done. 3 cars in a 2 car garage, plus a home brew fridge, a workbench and a pile or storage space.
On with the car already!
OK, enough talking about the garage. Let's talk GT40s. So late last year a new muffler arrived :) We were determined to get rid of the poxy mufflers on each side and go to a proper twin tip in the centre setup.
Yep, that looks MUCH better.
Damn, she's a big sucker! The mounts here are just a proof of concept.
As much as we'd like to build a proper 180 degree "bundle of snakes" exhaust system, we all know it'll take us 6 months and many headaches. So this'll do for now. Gets us closer to driving this thing. Tim picked up a few 2.5" bends and away we go.. Our TIG welding skills are improving, but we still have a long way to go. Oh yeah, you may remember that I have an Arduino-modded TIG welder. Well a few months back I programmed in a pulse function. It seems to have improved the welds :)
So, how does it sound? Pretty damn good! This video was taken at my Daughter's Christening after-party. The men had defaulted to the garage where there is home brew and a GT40. Needless to say, the car was gonna be started and it was gonna see some RPM.
It's still probably too loud for roadworthy, so we'll to do something about that, but it's getting closer. There are a few exhaust leaks around the connection to the muffler, so we'll be sorting that soon.
What else has been happening?
Since then, Tim has been doing most of the work as I've been pretty busy with the family. I managed to escape to the garage last week and do a bit of work. The muffler was sitting on a "proof of concept" cradle. I wanted to bend the flat bar to match the shape of the muffler. I was trying to figure out how to bend the flat bar with the gear I've got. After scrounging around, I managed to do it using an old brake disc. It worked perfectly. Clamp the brake disc in a vice, bend the bar around the hat part.
Meanwhile, Tim has been working on brake lines and the gear shift linkage (which now works). Pics coming soon.
