Finally an update!

Well over a year has passed by at lightning speed and not much has happened with the GT40. So what the hell have we been doing? Well, it’s been one hell of year. First up, we did a massive family trip to the USA. One fortunate off-shoot of this, were these awesome fuel fillers that I managed to pick up off a US eBay seller. They’re not strictly true GT40 replicas, but they will look great and do the job. They arrived at the house we were staying at on the very last day we left. Phew!

On return from the trip, I hit the garage with the intention of getting stuck into the car, but discovered it was a bit of a mess and soon got side tracked into organising the garage so that it’s easier to work in and find things. These homebrew malt jars make good screw storage and the old fresh wort kit “cubes” can be cut open to store spray cans, etc.

Soon after this, I was sent on a last minute work trip to Zambia, which took us through to Christmas. Over Christmas time, I discovered my Stagea had a radiator leak. Whilst the radiator was out I decided to do the timing belt, plus a full service of every fluid in the car: 10 different fluids in total! These are the casualties of the dreaded RB26 harmonic balancer bolt. Eventually I hired a big torque wrench to crack it. It probably took me a month to get the car back on the road.

Once the Stagea was fixed, we decided it was time to upgrade the wife’s car. I twisted her arm (not that it needed much twisting) into getting an MY11 Subaru WRX STi. A quick trip down to Sydney and it was ours. We absolutely love it.

So finally, in recent times I have been able to do a small amount of work on the GT40. It feels damn good to get stuck into it again. Currently, I’m trying to build the panel that goes in the top of the passenger’s side wheel arch. It’s a complex shape with several bends.

First up, I was lazy and took the template from the driver’s side, saw that it looked close enough so decided to cut out a new panel from it. I soon discovered the sides are not symmetrical (no surprise really). So next I created a new template.

And cut it out. Bending these requires a lot of patience and a bit of improvisation. Normally, I can only do 1 or 2 bends in my little bending brake. The rest of the bends have to be done with improvised methods. Thank God I chose to use 1.2mm Aluminium.

Here’s the result partway through the process.

So after making this one, it turned out one of the angles was a bit off. It looks OK in the picture, but it wasn’t a good fit. No amount of clamping, trimming or forcing would make it work, so it was back out with the jig saw to cut the same panel a third time. Lesson learned here is to take the time with the template. If it is slightly off with card, then you can guarantee it won’t fit with Aluminium. Thankfully this time it fits. Third time lucky!

So that’s where we’re up to. Dad has taken the dash home, so he can work on that in his spare time. I’ve been sent away with work again, but am hoping to pick up the pace now and get things progressing. I just need to remind myself that it will be an absolute joy when it is eventually finished. I think the current plan is to keep knocking over the remaining panels in the front end, fit the fuel fillers and then put the roof back on so we can work on the rear firewall. The clutch is done, brakes are nearly done, throttle and steering are done. So I’m really hoping that we might be able to move it under its own power sometime soon.