Rear firewall supports and central tunnel

On the weekend I found some time to work on the GT40. My mate Raj came over to give me a hand. He is the man who originally found the car for me back in 2011 and it was great to catch up with him. Raj tells me that he still regularly sees Richard, the original owner of this car. This is great news. I'll have to catch up with him.

Anyway, here's what we got up to.... the rear firewall and central tunnel.

With the changes to the engine pulleys, water pump and alternator we only need a small raised section to allow clearance for the belts etc. Here you can see the blue steel we have added. The intention is that a removable panel will attach in the centre between the two blue bars. The remaining aluminium sheets will bolt to the black painted bars.

Since this needs to allow for a central tunnel, I fabricated the supports for the sheeting which will box in the coolant pipes and other services. Here are a few pics.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the result. The next job will be to finish the welds, mount the handbrake and then fabricate the rear firewall. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it's looking. It will be very nice when all the aluminium panel work is behind us.

New Shiny Stuff

Just a pic to remind us how good these things look. 

It's been a few months since the last update, but we've managed to have a couple of sessions in the garage. Keen eyes may notice different castor wheels under the rear. The old ones were disintegrating and I managed to source some nylon castors to bolt in. Very disappointed with the quality of these go-jacks. One day, I'll have a better system to get the car in and out from the under the shelf. Castor wheel carnage below...

Anyway, enough ranting about the go-jacks. Since my last post, a few more goodies arrived. 

Air Filter

We finally have an air filter. I'm pretty happy with how it looks and it fits well inside the rear window.

Alternator and Rear Firewall

Next, the new alternator and crank pulley arrived. Unfortunately, nothing is truely "bolt on" with a kit car. Whilst the alternator attached to the engine easily, it fouled on the one of the rear angled bars. Out with the angle grinder... We made the decision to chop it out, because we've added a fair bit of extra bracing in the rear and all other GT40 kits I've seen do not have these bars.

Here you can see the problem...

Last weekend, Tim and I managed to spend half a day in the garage. Tim got stuck into the rear bulkhead, while I worked on the fuel fillers. You can see Tim's chopped the second bar out and welded in a bar across the bottom to bolt the aluminium sheet to.

Yesterday, I finished it off and removed one of the coolant lines to lengthen it.

Fuel Caps

The original fuel filler for this car was under the rear clamshell near the hot exhaust. What could possibly go wrong...

A couple of years ago, I picked up a nice set of polished aluminium fuel caps to go in front of the windscreen where they should be. I've been looking forward to putting these in. First up, we spent a fair bit of time drawing some marks on the body to make sure they're both symmetrical. I then cut out a template and set it up.

After a dead Dremel and more cutting, it was done.  Here's a test fit. I wedged some spacers underneath to lift the fuel cap. Unfortunately, the flat panel that the fuel cap bolts to slopes downwards slightly on this car, so we will make up spacers to get the fuel fillers level and at the correct height.

Yesterday, I did the passenger's side, welded in additional bars to bolt the fuel caps to and cut out a bit more clearance around them so that the front can hinge open without fouling on them. I'm pretty happy with the result. I'll bolt them in once the front end is in the correct position and the aluminium sheet is in.