USA GTD Build

[Brian]

I see that other than what Brett McCall has been posting in regards to his Roy Smart chassis build, we don't have much posted it the way of GTD builds. If anyone would like, I can put up some pics and history of my efforts. Guarenteed not to be wiz-bang, but still may be of interest to some and possibly incentive enough for anyone waiting on the sidelines to jump in and give it a go.

Brian

[Mark Worthington]

Absolutely, Brian. A GTD build thread would me interesting to most, and could really help a lot of guys who find themselves owning GTDs.

BTW, the picture you sent me of your chassis on its wheels with the engine install mocked up really got me motivated. I think there are at least two GT40s in New England that take their first breaths this spring. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Iron Sheik]

Brian,

PLEASE DO. There are 3 or 4 of us here in the west coast that build our GTDs before this forum existed. So it would be great to look at someone else starting a GTD. specially if you are doing upgrades to suspension or brake areas. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Brian]

Well then lets see how this goes.........
I am building chassis number 370. It is one of the last, if not THE last GTD chassis that Ray Christopher had a hand in. I arranged the purchase through Ray and Graham way back in 98. What you see here is pretty much what I puchased from GTD. My intent back then, and still is now to build an economical non-complicated replica. Our initial purhcase was for a bare chassis, body panels, fuel tanks, steering rack, windshield and some other odds and ends. As a matter of fact, I used a credit card to make the purchase.

[Brian]

If you look close enough, you can see that the frame had not even been coated. What a leap of faith we had made! But we wanted one of these cars bad enough to take the plunge and at the time it was the only alternative available. I had gone down and visited the Tornado folks in Ct and that did not work out, personalities... ERA was way out of my price range, Sabre could not get me anything and neither of the dwon under cars were available in the states.


Brian

[Brian]

Not much happened for about a year or so after we pushed the chassis into the garage as the play money was gone and I need to save up to buy more parts. Of course I was not too sure where I was going to get them, so I joined both of the UK clubs and started scouring the adverts for used parts.

A little while after I joined the clubs, Malcolm and I struck up a friendship which continues to this day. Malcolm was kind enough to entertain my continous barrage of technical questions and suggestions for parts sources. Finally after conversing for the better part of a year, we hatch a plan for me to go over to the UK for a visit and I would attempt to pick up some parts while there.

I spent nearly three weeks in the UK and had a blast, I met a bunch of guys from the club, visited a variety of work shops, went to Ray Christopher's house and had dinner with him. Frank Catt took me in my first ever GT-40 Ride in Andrew's car at Goodwood, we went to Donnington for track time and on and on. I still can't say enough about the level of hospitality I experienced in the UK.It was the best.

While in the UK I think I scoured up every single GTD part that was not being utilized in the UK at that time. I came back to the states with what I think was around 500 pounds of parts as excess baggage in the aircraft hold. When I came through customs I had
- A rebuilt Transaxle
- Adapter plate set up
- Flywheel, clutch , clutch cover, throw-out bearing,
- Hydraulic cylinder for clutch
- Front and rear uprights
- Pin drive adapters
- A set of shocks and springs
- A pedal box mount
- Radiator
- Axles
- CV joints
- Ball joints and tie rod ends
- Master cylinders
- Plus boxes and boxes of stuff I can't even remember like a speedometer, parking brake cable, hubs, drive flanges, CV adapters, Transaxle mounts, bearing carriers, bearings, seals and some very unique fasteners required for the build.

Brian

[Malcolm]

Bugger, so thats where the bits went. Wendy and I thought you just wanted to stay up late because of the time zone differences but in reality you were in my garage helping yourself!

Thanks for the list of bits that are now missing from my car! If I can replace these items I hope to have my car back on the road within 3 years!!!! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif[/img]

[Brian]

Yes Malcolm, that's why your car has been wobbly, all the good bits are at my house.....

Our left hand drive chassis was set up for center shift and we decided to convert it over to left hand shift. Mostly because with me in the car, there would not be any room for a center shift. Through Roy Smart, a very good friend, I was able to secure a rod shift set up and the appropriate pieces to modify the frame. Basically what we had to do was to create a kink in the frame as right hand GTD's have and utilize a shifter set up to work on the opposite of typical side. Here you can see some of the frame mods that had to be done.

Brian

[Brian]

After we had completed the frame modifications, I wheeled the chasiss out into the drive and did a real agressive sanding job, followed up by sandblasting in the difficult to reach areas. Subsequent to that, an aluminum colored finsihing product called Chassis saver was applied. It took some serious effort to apply, but I was happy with the finish which is not too bad as you can see here.......

[Brian]

and here

[Brian]

And a little more here

[Brian]

Aluminum paneling came next. Now I don't know how much this chassis is supposed to weigh, but I have been able to easily move it around by myself and I am no spring chicken, but just by climbing in and grabbing hold, I could walk around with it or stand aside and roll it over quite easily. I am hoping that if we don't bolt on too much unecessary junk , it won't be very heavy when it is done.

The first part of the chassis to clad was the floor and this was rather easily accomplished as it is just several flat pieces. Not knowing too much about what I was doing at the time, I fit the floor pan to the chassis by screwing it down in a few places and running around the outside with a woodworking router using a laminate trimming bit. When the bit got too hot, the metal melted and gobbed up the bit, but otherwise it worked well.
3/16" gas tight rivets and 3M single part slow cure marine adhesive was used to hold everything together.

[Brian]

The rivet spacing was driving me nuts. I got pretty sick of constantly measuring and dividing in order to get a nice even appearance.

[Brian]

It did not take me long to realize, like three rivets, that an essential tool for doing this work is a pneumatic rivet gun. Fortunately I was able to borrow one from a friend. Even with no prior metalworking experience, if you take your time, things will come out halfway decent looking

[Brian]

So now we are on to the rest of the paneling. After flipping the chassis over and droppig the fiberglass tub in, we decided that becasue of the appearance and some clearance issues to drop the glass tub and panel the interior. Malcolm was kind enough to forward some drawings that a fellow club member had made while ali caldding his tub and I used those for a starting point. Prior to doing this work, my only experience with meal work was crushing aluminum cans for recycling, and I did not have anything for tools. I consumed a lot of aluminum through trial and error and did not really hit my stride until I got my hands on Mark's three way metal machine. All of this paneling is 5052 H32, it bends easily enough, does not crack and can be polished up rather easily. I would like to coat it with something when we are done but I am not sure what to use at this point, maybe Zoops seal. In this picture the paneling has been screwed to the chassis unsing number 6 screws. When happy with the fit, I make some registration marks on the aluminum with a Sharpee' marker, pull everything apart, put down my adhesive, then screw it all back together. Then I run around the panels pulling out the screws and popping rivets in place one at a time. It's a little more complicated than that with ensuring everything is properly scuffed and clean, but you get the idea.

[Brian]

Undoubtedly the most difficult part of my aluminum ordeal. I say ordeal beacue to get this fit took me three tries at cutting, bending and fitting these panels. Good thing ali sheets are cheap. Through a substantial volume of email, picture exchanging and borrowing Steve's factory panels for trial fit, I began to get the idea. This represents about 2 months worth of work at my pace.

[Brian]

Trial fitting rear cladding, I have been working very diligently to avoid the utilization of "L" shaped corner moldings. Although it looks like these panels are flat, the wing panel is not and required careful nursing into place for the proper fit.Edges are neatened and trimmed with files and body hammers prior to final installation.

[Brian]

Time forward a bit here. All of the glue and aluminum attached to the chassis was making it a bit heavy, so off to Home Depot to buy a bucket of bolts to put the wheels on. I knew I'd be putting things to gether and taking them apart 50 times before final installation, so I use junk bolts for the trial fittings. Then I take precise measurements and purchase AN hardware from Pegasus for final assembly. Rivnuts are used for panels that have to be removable.

[Brian]

And another