1149 Mono Replica

Jim,
Well stated argument about rotomolded tanks. I agree in principal with all you have said, however, I have seen failures of plastic tanks around the filler spud area from inadequate material deposited during molding. This problem occurred to a very popular fuel tank manufacturer that had to pay for the recall of more than 1500 boats. Almost put them under. Just make sure what you are getting. The manufacturers which I previously mentioned have had absolutely no safety issues with thier respective products.

Jack M
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
You're right. Any tank can fail. Hatteras and Bertram had an unblemished record on FRP tanks until ethanol mix fuels came along- now they are all coming apart, and taking engines with them. My boat is diesel, but I worry. Do you think a vendor who was set up to make rotomolded tanks for GT40s could sell any appreciable number of them? The tooling cost is considerable. But a plastic tank that you could slide into the sponson would be a very good way to get around the fuel-cell bag tank arrangement.


I have had some photos from Jay C of 1149s pedal box assembly, which he's completing and assembling- VERY nice work. As soon as it's complete, we'll get some pictures up, either on his thread or mine. He's been extremely helpful and I appreciate it a lot.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
A quick update: no new photos, but we have made some progress on correcting the fit of the fiberglass parts to the monocoque. They've moved from the rear clip to the rocker panels, one of which was lengthened about 20mm today. Meanwhile I have been accumulating the other parts I needed (a thank-you to Brady who has been very helpful with all this- the rear louvered grilles arrived last week, and the halfshafts as well. The dash is ready for primer and paint, the rear clip about 75% there. I have several items ordered from Jay Cushman, some of which have arrived and look very good. Also a package from Andrew Booth on the way- dash vents, RV mirror, and some other odds and ends. I estimate another month or so on the body and then she'll get painted. I will post some updated photos when we vacuum all the dust up and some primer has been sprayed.

Thanks to Chuck who was kind enough for forward a copy of his RCR build log, which will be very helpful when we start the plumbing work. Also to Jay and Andy who have likewise contributed a lot of their time and information.

We have a LONG list of things to photograph and take notes about when we get to spend some time with the only original Mark I car that is local and available to me. In the meantime, I appreciate all the help I've gotten in answer to various questions. Thanks to all.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
A good GT40 day....spent two hours or so this morning taking some detail photos of 1072, kindly made available by its' collection manager. Arrived home to find the pedal box for 1149 had arrived and unpacked it. VERY nice!!! For those of you who haven't seen the quality of pieces that Jay Cushman turns out, well, you ought to. It's a treat to be sure. I'll post a photo of it this week. We're going to try to get all the brake pieces in so that we can make templates up for the brake and clutch hydraulic lines, and send them off to Classic Tube who are going to make them up.

1072 is a good example of a car which has been continually maintained and well-kept up, but not prettied up. It was a road-spec car to begin with, but was campaigned in hillclimbs often by one of its early owners. It wears the wire grilles in the intakes and nostrils, it has door locks, it has AC (fitted early on in England, evidently) and some other interesting features: only one fuel pump, a Stewart-Warner 240, and one luggage box on the starboard side of the car. The place where the other luggage box would be is occupied by an oil cooler- probably an engine oil cooler. This car also has a heater unit in addition to the AC, so the windshield washer bottle and pump are mounted down low on the port side in the front, not in a recess in the access cover as I think the racing cars had. Although a road car, 1071 has a race-spec engine with 48IDA Webers. This is probably the 289 it came with, although I am not able to tell. It also has the Ford valve covers with the box extensions on them, although this set was chromed at some point. The rear clip releases with small knobs inside the car in addition to the Hartwell latches externally.

We hope to get a look underneath 1072 if/when it goes in for service in the near future, which will allow me to photograph some areas that are very difficult to see on a car which is only forty inches tall. There isn't a lot of room under there....
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
A good GT40 day....spent two hours or so this morning taking some detail photos of 1072, kindly made available by its' collection manager. Arrived home to find the pedal box for 1149 had arrived and unpacked it. VERY nice!!! For those of you who haven't seen the quality of pieces that Jay Cushman turns out, well, you ought to. It's a treat to be sure. I'll post a photo of it this week. We're going to try to get all the brake pieces in so that we can make templates up for the brake and clutch hydraulic lines, and send them off to Classic Tube who are going to make them up.

1072 is a good example of a car which has been continually maintained and well-kept up, but not prettied up. It was a road-spec car to begin with, but was campaigned in hillclimbs often by one of its early owners. It wears the wire grilles in the intakes and nostrils, it has door locks, it has AC (fitted early on in England, evidently) and some other interesting features: only one fuel pump, a Stewart-Warner 240, and one luggage box on the starboard side of the car. The place where the other luggage box would be is occupied by an oil cooler- probably an engine oil cooler. This car also has a heater unit in addition to the AC, so the windshield washer bottle and pump are mounted down low on the port side in the front, not in a recess in the access cover as I think the racing cars had. Although a road car, 1072 has a race-spec engine with 48IDA Webers. This is probably the 289 it came with, although I am not able to tell. It also has the Ford valve covers with the box extensions on them, although this set was chromed at some point. The rear clip releases with small knobs inside the car in addition to the Hartwell latches externally.

We hope to get a look underneath 1072 if/when it goes in for service in the near future, which will allow me to photograph some areas that are very difficult to see on a car which is only forty inches tall. There isn't a lot of room under there....
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Yesterday we fitted the sway bar and sway bar upright links that I got from Jay Cushman. The links fit onto monoballs which slide over a bolt on the lower rear control arm, and a Heim joint threads into the upper end of the link and onto the sway bar. Nice fit; we just need a few odds and ends like circlips etc to have it all together. I am using some fabricated brackets we made to hold this all in until stamped ones arrive from JC. Photos pending (yes I keep saying that but I really will do it)

Also we finally have brake hats that fit, courtesy of Safir GT40, so now we can fit all the brake system components and measure and template for the hydraulic tubing for the brake and clutch systems. Progress.....
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Some photos of 1149 in progress. The bodywork on the rear clip is virtually complete. We also have the rear sway bar installed on temporary mounts. The brake calipers are finally in, after several headaches with the fit (or non-fit) of the brake hats. We have the (nearly) complete pedal box assembly and next week will begin working out where all the brake lines go, as well as the clutch hydraulic lines.

The fact that there are so many colors on the bodywork obscures just how good the fit is; the fiberglass specialists have done a very good job of getting everything to fit consistently and properly.
 

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Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
More progress...today we figured out where everything goes on the back bulkhead- the front inside wall of the engine area. Fuel pump(s), fuel filter, pressure regulator, voltage regulator, and then some nonstandard stuff like the MSD controller and Blaster coil. We then put the pedal assembly in the car and began making notes for all the brake lines- where the routing is, where the junctions are, etc. I hope to finish this up tomorrow and also possibly start hooking up the cooling system plumbing. We have to make drawings for the brackets which will hold the electric cooling fans....plumbing goes first. Once this stuff is mounted, I will post a few shots. Considering I've been at this ten years, I have comparatively few photos. Of course, things sat around a bit at times. We are also going to get the remote oil filter connected, if we have time.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Progress by inches, and kudos to one of the suppliers: Swartz Racing, in Minford, OH, who are a Wilwood dealer and who have been very helpful. Oil filter remote looks good...got the brake pad spacers we needed from Swartz, along with several bottles of high-zoot Wilwood DOT 4 fluid...also spent several hours measuring and have a list of the seventeen brake lines and assorted fittings which will unite all these bits into a functioning hydraulic brake and clutch system...also fitted the exhaust pipes into place and sad to say they fit very well. Sad because they are too thin and fragile to use following my ill-advised attempt to clean them up. The metal is too brittle to weld; at least six of the eight will have to be replaced. The flanges are reusable. The muffler/collector units are likewise okay....if anyone has suggestions for a shop in this area which does very good stainless welding and can fabricate new pipes using these as patterns, I'd love to hear about it.

We will not make Road America for the 45th reunion. No way. Not even on a trailer partly completed. However, if there is a 50th reunion, we will be there, God willing and the creek don't rise.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Thanks! I'd like to get it finished while I am still able to climb in and out of it, and drive it. I shouldn't wait too long, I think ;)
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
More progress....brakes are in with spacers- just waiting for brake lines. And the rest of the pedal box assembly from Jay Cushman. Drive shafts are in! (although the CV joints are not greased, since we will have to pull at least some of this out). Rear sway bar done- waiting for the front sway bar, which we are getting from Jay as well.

Next step is fitting the seventeen brakes lines and assorted fittings into the car and making sure everything works as it's supposed to...after that we're going to tackle the cooling system plumbing. Meanwhile, the bodywork goes on. We are roughly half done- the rear clip and rocker panels complete, the doors and front clip yet to go.

Now: does anyone know where to get alignment specs for the front end on a Mark I GT40? We need to start setting up the front end. I must have mislaid the shop manual ;) - I can't find it anywhere.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Progress on brake lines, and all that: a thanks and tip of the hat to Swartz Race Cars in Minford, OH, who have been very helpful in supplying all the various bits needed to hook up the brakes. A question about brake vs. clutch lines, for anyone who would care to comment:

Carroll Smith's book on race car fasteners and plumbing states we should use AN-4 lines for a hydraulic clutch, as more fluid needs to be moved to get the hydraulic release bearing to disengage the clutch. However, I've seen a number of cars which use AN-3 fittings and line for the hydraulic clutch system. Anyone have any comments on this? At some point, I am going to convert this to an external clutch system; I am not really crazy about HRBs in this car, although in my Toyota truck and vehicles of that kind they work fine. In my Kirkham Cobra, I used an external system made by KMS- they specifically advised NOT using a HRB. I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks about this. Particularly the owners of ERA GT40 cars as my bellhousing was made by ERA.
After my initial intent to use hard piping for the internal chassis lines, it became very clear that this would require weeks of template-bending and more weeks to get the hard lines made. I gave up on that and the entire system is AN-3 SS braid hose. This stuff expands very little, if at all, and I think will be fine. This also means fewer unions as I can use longer runs back to the rear brake T and the clutch. 1149s tub was fitted with hard points for the flex lines which neatly accommodate bulkhead fittings- thanks to David Brown or Kerry Adams or whoever put them in. We are waiting for a second bag of adapters etc from Swartz and then we can put the system together and bleed it. I hope to have functional brakes by the end of June, along with a working clutch.
 
Rally cars are prepped with all hose brake systems because of the high maintenance/rebuild requirement. Race cars, on the other hand, have hard lines because they do provide extra 'feel' to the system - important when you are continually trying to judge braking up to the point of lock-up. In normal driving it wouldn't make any noticeable difference as you should rarely (if ever!) be using the braking system up to 100% of its capability.
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
I was hoping someone would say that. It would have taken weeks to make all the templates and weeks more to get them- and see if they fit based on the templates. And since the pedal box is not hard-mounted (it has to be able to move since the seat is obviously fixed), there are flex lines running to the pedal box as well. Where it is going to make a difference is in the line runs to the back of the car; the front brake lines are so short that it won't make a lot of difference. But the line to the clutch, for example, is 138". We'll see.

The concern about the clutch is this: from what I understand, a lot of fluid has to flow through the system in order to move the piston of an hydraulic release bearing. Obviously the same amount of fluid will ultimately flow through a -3 hose as a -4, but it will take longer to do so. Whether this will affect the clutch feel is open to question. I guess I will find out. If I have to change the hoses out, it isn't the end of the world. Of course, I would rather not have to do it.
 
Hi Jim, Go with the hard line if you can, would be a shame to use the other stuff, 3/16 for brakes and 1/4 for clutch, some photos if it helps
 

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Ian Anderson

Lifetime Supporter
Jim

The reason for the larger clutch tube it to allow the fluid to flow.

With a quick gear change the clutch may not engage quickly enough and cause slipping / heat etc.

Hence the large pipe flows more fluid and for clutch dumps will get the same speed of movement at the clutch end of the system

Ian
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
Got it. John, your brake lines look terrific. I wish I had those. Maybe later, but right now I'd just like to get some of this stuff working. Did you make all those hard lines up yourself? They look very well done indeed.
 

Keith

Moderator
I've always used hard pipe for everything including fuel for my race cars and it's actually quite satisfying to run it. I could not contemplate using a flexible pipe for brake and/or clutch - just doesn't fit in to my sphere of experience!

Even running hard lines is not exempt from problems. Some rules won't allow the use of copper in brake lines but I've always used it no problem - but some experts will say that steel is safer. It might be but it's also very prone to corrosion. From memory I always used Kunifer cupro-nickel in 90-20 mix as it is easy to anneal and forgiving to fit...

Does SVA in UK madate the type of brake lines to/not use?
 
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