KCC Restoration

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
Nice work!
Don't forget to lubricate the crankshaft seals with something that will stay put until you fire the engine!
 
Hi there.
I've been following this thread since March, as I also have a KCC GT40 (acquired in February).
This is just a quick post to let you know I have the original manual the KCC cars came with.
If you're interested, I can scan and send it to you if you need more information.

They used quite a lot of different parts from different cars and manufacturers to keep the costs low, and maintenance easy. eg: Jaguar door handles, VW Kombi 2.0 clutch, Audi 016 gearbox etc.. As a later upgrade, you can have a look at the CAV suspension setups which have been incorporated with the KCC design.

Looking forward to seeing the progress on this car!
Hopefully I'll start my own thread once I've gotten a bit further with my car :)
 
Hi Marc, thanks we also picked up a copy of this manual from a Mark Clapp on this forum. Very handy. I'm looking forward to seeing some pics of your car.

Egoman: Thanks for the tip. I don't recall this plug, so I'll have to check it out.
 
Thanks mate. I'll have to check it out. Not sure now that the plug is installed. We definitely didn't install it. I'm not sure if the engine machinist removed it or not.
 
Hi Marc, thanks we also picked up a copy of this manual from a Mark Clapp on this forum. Very handy. I'm looking forward to seeing some pics of your car.

I wasn't sure if I did indeed read that you got a manual in this thread, bit of a memory lapse :shocked2:

The condition of mine is better than yours (mechanically & chassis), but whoever maintained the poor car did a shoddy job. It was very dirty, and they just sprayed black all over everything on the chassis. I've found cable ties, screws, electronic components etc inbetween the dirt and grime while cleaning it. Luckily there was minor rust on the chassis.

The original factory where they built the KCC GT40's is quite close to home, it's just a shame KCC stopped and turned into Volkspares. I personally think the world needs more cheaper variants of a GT40 kit car, something considered a base model. I picked this one up for a about $9500AUS, which is dirt cheap in South Africa.

You've definitely picked up a good car, since there's so much you can do to it. You're going to have a lot of fun with this car.
 
Last edited:
I also want to ask, if it's possible, for you to send me the specs of the wheels the car had on when you got it? The wheels mine currently has on is no way near correct. It was just put on to get it rolling on & off a trailer.

I'm specifically wondering about the offsets on the front & rears. We've worked out the rear to be a 0 offset at the back, but haven't looked at the front yet.
 
Hi Marc, it sounds like yours has had an iteresting life. Our poor car was left under a cover for a few years out in the rain, etc. Thankfully the chassis has very little rust, but just about everything needs to be rebuilt or painted. It's going much slower than we would have hoped, but that's life unfortunately. All of us work full-time (and more), so it's hard to get time.

Yep sure, I can measure the wheels for you. According to the Mark Clapp, he had the same wheels as ours, so these are possibly the ones that came from the KCC factory.
 
Hi Mark and Simon, I also have a KCC GT40, but with MK3 bodywork. Simon i would be interested in a copy of the manual if you could scan it for me. I'm very slowly rebuilding mine(taken 7 years so far, but marriage and house buying/renovating etc always seems to get in the way). The condition of mine is not too bad chassis wise, but i'm slowly changing most things. Adding air-con at present and trying to improve the gearlinkage (also running Audi 016). Good luck with both rebuilds! Richard
 
Hi Richard,

It's great to see so many KCC owners popping up. I'd love to see some photos of your car. I'll see if I can send you the manual tonight unfortunately it won't upload from work :(

Simon
 
Hi Mark and Simon, I also have a KCC GT40, but with MK3 bodywork. Simon i would be interested in a copy of the manual if you could scan it for me. I'm very slowly rebuilding mine(taken 7 years so far, but marriage and house buying/renovating etc always seems to get in the way). The condition of mine is not too bad chassis wise, but i'm slowly changing most things. Adding air-con at present and trying to improve the gearlinkage (also running Audi 016). Good luck with both rebuilds! Richard

Hi Richard, I'll send you a copy of mine as well. PM me an email address to send it to and I'll send it as soon as I have the chance.

Mine luckily has its aircon sorted, just some minor maintenance needed to get it back to working 100% again.

I'm with you on the gear linkage, it's a "select and really hope for the best" scenario.
I've got specs on the gearbox as well. I will get them up somewhere or try to find the original link.

7 years is quite a long time to get a car back up and running, good luck with your project!
 
Hi Marc, it sounds like yours has had an iteresting life. Our poor car was left under a cover for a few years out in the rain, etc. Thankfully the chassis has very little rust, but just about everything needs to be rebuilt or painted. It's going much slower than we would have hoped, but that's life unfortunately. All of us work full-time (and more), so it's hard to get time.

With winter here, I decided to give the work a rest and get back to other projects in the mean time. I'll be sending in some components to be changed etc, and once it warms up again I'll jump straight back into this car.

Yep sure, I can measure the wheels for you. According to the Mark Clapp, he had the same wheels as ours, so these are possibly the ones that came from the KCC factory.

That would really help, I'm trying to get as much info on them before I have them made. There's a place called Re-Nu-A-Mag / Motoworx who manufacture custom wheels, and luckily for the GT40 as well (also very close to home). I want the BRM 17" rims, but with a bit of customization. I'll speak to the guys in the club here about them as well.

cobra-brm-15-17.jpg
 
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...

image025.jpeg


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

P1050862.JPG


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

P1050856.JPG


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...

P1050858.jpg

P1050860.JPG


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.

P1050892.jpg

P1050893.jpg

P1050894.JPG


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.

OBPKC001_300.jpg


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

P1050899.JPG


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

image002.jpg

image003.jpg

image004.jpg

image006.jpg


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..

P1050919.JPG

P1050921.jpg


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.

P1050925.JPG

P1050930.JPG


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...

P1050933.JPG


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 :)

P1050928.JPG


It's looking good from this view.

P1050932.JPG


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.

P1050917.JPG


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.

P1050923.jpg

P1050924.JPG


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...

P1010619.JPG

P1010591.JPG

P1010592.JPG

P1010614.JPG
 
Back
Top