GT40 Australia #32 - Time for Rebuild

[Craig White]

Rear shot...I have just finished trimming up the guard lip to match the lip on the guard. The lower sill had to be built up to match the clip, so ended up with a very wide guard lip on lower sill.

[Howard Jones]

Craig, welcome into the fold. Your fit lines look very good. This is the real test of a home built GT40. By home I mean you did the body youself. Good work!

[Craig White]

Thanks Howard. I've also been sneaking the help of the same professional for fit lines. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] When I bought the car(complete) the body was pretty straight, but fit lines were shocking. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] Yep, this is by far the hardest part. The fit lines are not perfect and I've got to make a call when I am happy enough with them. Will do a final fit-up over next few days and decide if they are good enough. I've still got to fit spigots to front clip. I'm pretty fussy, but you can get anal about these things.

I've just been doing the easy stuff, labour intensive stuff. Which there is plenty of. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I've put a lot of hours into that body. Couldn't afford to pay someone to do all that work.

Get the professional to do all hard/tricky stuff for a few reasons: I'm a bit short of time, been quite sick of late, don't really have the space now to do body work(create that much dust) and want to try to ensure that some of body defects don't come back. Been lucky to find someone that is quite happy for me to come down and work on the body while it's in their shed.

Major stuff being done by Professional/s:

Widen of rear guards
Fix all stress cracks
Fix all heat cracks
Glass in MKIII side window frames
Mould & glass in napa duct housings.
Body prep
Paint

I would have liked to have done more, but illness has kept me away from the car, so haven't been able to do as much as I would have liked. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] At least it's progressing again now. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Peter D]

Craig, she is looking really nice - great job on the panel gaps, & the general fairing is superb !

Don't get too carried away with the nth degree of perfection - my experience with fibre-bloody-glass is that it has a mind of its own in the first few years of its life. It just seemed to want to settle & move that little bit extra once I got things just right !

I now justify my new-found tolerance of minor body faults by remembering that the originals were far from perfect - they were just meant to be driven !

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Craig White]

My body has had plenty of time to settle, don't forget it's been on the road for nearly 5 years. And was put out in the weather everyday for 6 months while it sat for sale at the DRB factory.

Unfortunately the body mods are fresh, so have fresh rear guards and lot of other body mods. Luckily most of these have sat for 4 months and had some time out in the sun. So hopefully have settled a little.

Expect to see some defects appear, but as long as they are not too bad I'll be happy. No car is perfect. I was happy with first Cobra we had for 6 years, so expect I'll be pleased in the long term with this body.

The professional has guaranteed all his work and he is as genuine as they come. So at least he has faith as well.

Things are progressing well, will hopefully have some more pics to post tomorrow. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Craig White]

Still haven't remembered to take some more photos, but here is a quick update. I'll post photos later.

Car still hasn't got any paint appplied yet, still a few hold ups.

I've spent an amazing amount of time working on it down at the paint shop. Getting a lot of stuff done that was going to wait till it came back, but much better done now before it's painted. Also finding more and more things I would to fix, so the GT40 will be a lot better for extra time spent now.

Finished fitting the brake ducts to the front clip. Turned out to be a lot more difficult than I originally thought. For anyone that is thinking about fitting 3" brake ducts to a DRB, it's alot of work and a very tight fit...a lot easier to stick with 2" ones. Anyway, I've just managed to squeeze them in, have exactly 8mm gap either side of brake duct outlet to fit hose on. On inside edge the 8mm gap is to the inner vender wall, on outsid edge te 8mm gap is to the wall that house headlight housing and clip retaining strap. Also had problems at top of outlet where pipe would foul chassis, now run outlet a lot lower...not ideal, but it fits.

Also fitted spigots to front clip, which sounds simple, but have spent days and days on front clip panel gaps before fitting spigots. Now spigots have been fitted, it has shown up more problems. Argh. Anyway lots more work on panel gaps, but it is getting there.

Also fitted some mounts underneath clip for headlights, don't want bolts to run through to headlight recess. A few reasons for doing this. Also attached some mounts underneath rear clip for some stainless trim.

And finally finished cleaning up underneath front and rear clip. Have been doing a lot of work to make them look tidy. Will be painting them with stone guard and then gloss back 2pak.

It's great to be able to spend so much time working on the GT40...feels great. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Pete.]

Sounds like you are doing a very thorough job Craig.
I'll be interested to see the finished product, especially as I had a good look at the car at DRB before you bought it.

[Craig White]

Pete, one thing thing is for sure, you won't recognize it.

Actually DRB set the bar pretty high with their factory built cars, so it's a lot of work to just get the car as good as yours.

It was a good base, considering I'm only replacing the brakes, wheels & paint and a few other minor things. There was a lot of good money spent on it and mechanically it's set up just the way I'd want it. So it's been a great buy so far. Although I will end up a little over budget, the result will be great.

Mind you this would have been a lot easier if I didn't do all those body mods. I just love the look of gulf flares like on your car, then there is the MKIII windows, high mount mirrors for incredible rear vision(must for gulf flares), opened up napa ducts, new deep nostrel vents etc etc and all the hours cleaning up the body work inside & out. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Craig White]

Some more photos of some of the more interesting stuff I've been working on.

Here are the decales for sill stripes. These are reverse templates and writing will be spray painted on and of course the stripes masked up. Haven't decided whether I'm going the twin stripes on new GT or wide and 2 narrow stripes each side of old GT's. Decided that I like the lettering the way it was done originally(solid), so meant that the template could be ordered at least.

I'll leave the decision about the type of sill stripes, to the very last minute. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Craig White]

Photo of spigot bush(female part) on the front clip. Earlier I posted a photo of male part of spigot.

The spigot bush is made from nylon and has a raised centre area that locks into clip and gives spigot some extra depth. I bought spigot kit from DRB factory.

[Craig White]

Here is a photo of front brake air intake ducts that were glassed onto the body. DRB GT40 comes from factory(and by looks of it hasn't changed) with housings glassed in to mount indicators in brake duct holes.

I've decided to retrofit brake ducts. Did not buy the factory kit as I wanted 3" brake hose. So made up some ducts from mould supplied by local brake shop. I've started to regret the decision of 3" ducts as these were very hard to squeeze into front clip, fingers crossed I can engineer the 3" hose into the equation as well. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Craig White]

And finally the mirrors fitted. These are the high mount DRB mirrors, available in manual or electric form. Mine are manual. May not be original looking, but they give fantastic vision to rear. You can actually see over the rear clip and help with rear vision directly behind the car, even when setup for standard rear vision for lane changing.

I considered these essential once the Gulf guards were fitted.

[JackW]

Hi Craig

How is your rebuild coming along? Reading through you were being very thorough which is always a good things. Looking forward to seeing how your handy work is coming along.

Regards

Jack

[Craig White]

I've been a bit slack on adding updates.

Basically been just doing body work on and off for last 6 months. Unfortunately various other commitments have gotten in the way and have slowed things down.

It is actually getting the final colour put on at the moment.

So should have some more photos to add next week. Woohoo.

[Craig White]

More delays, I've been sneaking in some last minute changes. But now it's finally getting final paint.

Here are a couple of shots of the rear clip painted.

Subaru WR Blue Perl. Paint Code - 02C
Subaru Artic White Perl stripes (has white base and separate perl/mica coat, then put clear on). Paint Code - 36J.

Stripe Width: 170mm with 40mm gap.

Also paid a bit extra labour to get stripe edges rubbed back so that they would be semi-smooth - no hard edges.

As you can see, definitely not building an original looking GT40.

Will post more when I have more photos.

[Bill D]

WOW!! That is beautiful! You have done a terrific job rebuilding that car into a real show stopper. Please keep the pictures coming.

Cheers
Bill D

[JackW]

I LOVE Blue with white stripes! I can't wait to see some more photos of the rest of the body.

Keep up the awesome work.

Cheers

Jack

[Pete.]

BLING, BLING,
looks sensational Craig, keep the pics coming.