Gaining Momentum

Well, it's been quite a few weeks since my last update, but rest assured, we have been quite busy and have certainly been enjoying the project. First up, Tim had a week off Uni and managed to get a few small jobs out of the way, like rebuilding the carb. He also purchased some steel and started to get stuck into some chassis improvements.

You may remember in my last update that we were reassembling the engine. A few people recommended that we check for the 'secret' oil gallery plug below the rear main seal. Dad drew the short straw and took the time to remove the sump and check. Fortunately we found it was already in place. Thanks for the heads-up guys. It's good to check these things...

Chassis Improvements

Now on to the fun stuff... The main aim here is to improve rigidity of the chassis and to make the panelling look better. For those who forget, this is what the panelling used to look like...

First job, was to install cross-pieces under the footwells This is a real hollow section of the car.

Next up, rear bulkhead supports and a cross bar that may eventually be used as an anchor point for racing harnasses ;-)

Following that, our attention turned to the section in front of the windscreen. After studying other GT40 chassis, we decided to square off this section with a new cross bar in 20mm box section. The plan was to cut a panel to shape and sandwich it below the windscreen (bolts down on the curved piece). However, we discovered this will be a bit tricky since the curved section also bows upwards, as you can see in the second pic. I guess this is to match the shape of the fibreglass body, so we're reluctant to tamper with this too much. We're still deciding what we'll do here. Either a. maintain a panel that is parallel with the blue bar and sits below the curved bar or b. use a thin sheet that can be shaped to sit on top of the curved bar. For option a, we would fibreglass the area below the windscreen to tidy it all up nicely. Yet to decide on this one...

Righto, so this is the idea for the wheel arch. Quickly mocked up out of cardboard and wood by Tim. We're also allowing space here for fuel fillers to be installed on each side, as per the original GT40s. It'll look awesome.

We've also been discussing pedals a fair bit. The old set up used a pedal box from a VW (we think). The previous owner was a tall guy so he needed the pedals as far forward as possible. Hence, the front of the chassis had been cut out to fit this pedal box. It doesn't look overly strong (you can see the cutout in the front shot above). We really can't go past floor mounted pedals like the OBP ones below. Since we're all short arses, we can get away with moving the pedals a bit closer to the seat.

Tim testing out the driving position. Check out the extra bracing in the side pods.

 

I emailed our ideas to my mate Jim and he updated the 3D model to play with pedal positioning.

Time to Call in Some Brute Force..

Now Tim, Dad and I are very much amateurs when it comes to welding, so we'd just tack welded everything into place. Fortunately, my Father in law, John, has over 30 years experience and loves to get his hands dirty on anything with an engine (particularly if it's a Chevy). He was down from Townsville during the last weekend and put in some serious hours in the garage! What a legend.

John at work..

Some shots after the clean-up. Not only did he finish off all the welds we'd tacked, he also fabricated some of the tricky angled members in the front and fixed a few other issues. The welds look awesome. John does some seriously nice work. Thanks very much mate.

John also adjusted the curved bar by rising it at the ends. You may notice in the pics below that there are tabs welded on top of the bar towards the ends. These look like they were added in a hurry to raise the body at the edges. John cut and raised the curved bar instead. This will allow us to cut off the tabs and bolt to the curved bar directly. Much better...

Once when John was visiting last year we removed the K-frame. This job was made a whole lot more painful, because the front anchor bolt had been welded in to the chassis and was too long to be able to lift the K-frame up and over the top. The only solution was to cut it. John has now fixed this by welding a nut in instead, so we can bolt downwards to anchor down the K-frame. Also notice that John fixed the pedal box cut out. This just keeps getting better :)

 It's looking good from this view.

Suspension Painting

On Saturday, John had pretty much taken over the chassis, so Tim and I got on with other things. There was too much dust in the garage to do any engine work, so Tim worked outside and got stuck into painting the suspension parts that had been sitting waiting for a while. We were thinking of powder coating these, but it's quicker to do ourselves in an afternoon. Here's the finished products.

Seat Rails

While John and Tim were busy, I finally got around to mounting the seats on rails. I purchased rails from Autotecnica quite a while back, but haven't had a chance to get to them yet. They're quite low profile, so should work nicely. I mounted some steel bar inside the seat to bolt the rails to. I'll need to weld the bolts in properly, paint the flat bar to prevent it rusting and then tidy up the fibreglassing. They slide quite nicely, so that's a good start.

Some Motivation..

While looking at photos for this blog update, I discovered these old ones from when we first bought the car. It may have been a bit rough, but it's still one damn sexy car that will one day run again...

More Engine Progress

Over the last few weeks we've made pretty good progress with the engine. Only a couple of minor hiccups, but we got there in the end. The heads are now on. Next we need to install the rocker arms, rocker covers, inlet manifold and ancillaries.

Here are a few pics from the reassembly process.

Pistons in

Timing chain on. Those with a keen eye will notice a mistake. Behind that cam wheel are the ends of 3 oil galleries for the cam shaft. These are meant to be plugged. We didn't realise this until we'd put the timing chain cover and sump on and Dad spotted the plugs sitting on the bench "I think we've stuffed up somewhere...". Luckily we had that mistake fixed in half an hour :)

Moving on. The heads are now on. Before we put them on we noticed that the dowel pins were missing. We think the engine machinist must have removed them. I dropped into Repco and Autobarn, the two closest 'automotive stores' (and I use the term loosely), only to discover they don't carry them in stock. Ridiculous! These stores constantly disappoint with their lack of stock. If it's not seat covers, they won't have it.

The only solution was to make them ourselves. Looking around the garage, I found some spare exhaust studs that I'd had kicking around for a few years. 15 minutes on the bench grinder and I had them down to the right diameter (if only I had a lathe).

Now it's starting to look serious again. I can't wait to start her up some day.

Tim has this week off Uni, so he's planning to spend some time in the garage to get stuck into the chassis. It's about time he made up for all that time away. We're all looking forward to the chassi rebuild process.

Engine Rebuild Begins

Well, finally we feel like we've made some progress. Last weekend we finally started putting things back together instead of pulling things apart. For the past few weeks we have spent a fair bit of time cleaning engine parts in preparation for the rebuild. Finally, we get to start bolting it back together. Here are a few pics.

Dad spent many hours cleaning up these valves, valve guides and springs

It's been nearly a year since we stripped the heads, so some referral to the manual was required.

Thankfully, the 350 Chev is a very simple engine. Once Tim figured out how to install the first valve, the rest were knocked over in no time.

Crank and block have been cleaned (again) and crank has been installed.

So far, so good. This weekend we'll be installing the pistons, cam and heads. Fun times. It's nice to be making progress

1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back...

Finally, it's time for an update!! A few people have been asking for updates. So it's definitely time. First up, you'll notice the blog has had an overhaul. My wife has started as a freelance graphic designer and has just got into blogging. She couldn't help herself.. Here's a free plug for her blog: Design + Burrow. She writes much better than I do :)

Alright, a few months have passed, so what have we been up to? We've all been pretty busy, but have made some progress. Although sometimes it feels like we're going backwards. You'll see why further down.

Tidy Up

First up, a tidy up. In my last update I said that I met with Reinhold the fibreglassing guy who is making out seat shells. He recommended that I knock up some supports for our fibreglass body parts. I was a bit worried about the front clip which was leaning up against a wall, so I knocked up this support. Should do the trick. 

The Seats are here

Reinhold delivered the seat shells as promised and we are quite happy with them. They are amazingly light and strong. Of course, we had to test them out...

With the old seats Justin had no chance of fitting in the car. He was eager to see if he'll fit with the new ones. It's a tough call mate...

Last week I picked up some universal seat rails from Autotecnica. $54 each direct from the local distributor. Bargain! They look perfect for the job, too.

The Engine Parts are here

The engine parts were here from the US in less than a week. Amazing! This has inspired us to put the engine back together. The various parts are taking up half of the garage.

Dad has spent a few Saturdays now cleaning parts now. The latest was the valves and valve springs. I think we're just about there.

I suck at painting

After spending many hours stripping back the front suspension arms, I finally got around to spray painting them. Unfortunately, it did not go well. These photos speak for themselves..

The paint refused to bond to the metal in some places. The KBS Coating system we are using is 3 stages: Aquaklean, RustBlast and then paint. Stupidly, I used a tub of diluted Aquaklean that Tim had left in the garage from a few weeks back. I really should have made a new batch. It was way too dirty and is the likely cause of the terrible paint.

I decided that I'd have to strip these back and start again. Unfortunately for me, this paint is amazingly tough and cannot be stripped with a solvent. It had to be stripped with a wire wheel. 1 step backwards..

This next picture shows how tough this paint is. We've ended up with a perfect mould of our paint scoop. It looks like and feels like plastic. It should make an excellent seal for the chassis.

2 Steps Backwards..

A couple of weeks ago Dad was overseas and Tim and I decided we should strip the rear trailing arms to be painted. First we tackled the right hand side and it went quite easily. We needed a decent breaker bar to loosen the 34mm nut, but it budged.  We were quite proud of ourselves and I was quite happy with the new bench and vice.

Next we tacked the left hand side. Initially, the nut turned fairly easy, but then got tough. We soon discovered that the left hand side is infact a reverse thread. Damn it, the damage to the Stub Axle thread was done. Considering Ford Granadas were never released in Australia, this part may not be easy to find. If anyone knows where I can get one, please let me know.

Not only did we ruin the thread on the stub axle..

We also managed to bend Dad's Stiltson. This thing is probably older than I am. Sorry Dad!

Not all was lost that day, we did manage to strip the paint back.

And Tim did a pretty awesome job of painting the springs. One of my mates saw them the other day and asked if they were brand new. Nope..

 More parts cleaning

Last weekend I spent a good deal of time stripping the remainder of the suspension parts. Thankfully the bulk of it is done now and I can have another crack at painting this weekend.

I found this part interesting. The previous owner converted the rear brakes from drums to Alfa Romeo disc brakes. The photo below shows how they knocked up the caliper mounts. To me it appears they've found a small blank brake disc of the correct offset, drilled holes to match the wheel bearing housing, then cut out a notch and tapped holes to match the caliper. Pretty solid, yet simple design.

Well that's it from me for now. In the coming weeks we plan to: paint the suspension parts, rebuild the engine, mount the seats and then start painting the chassis. Exciting times!

Hopefully the next update will be sooner and shorter. Phew!