Lance's GT40 Australia Build

[Lance]

Thought I’d post a couple more images of the project. The interior is coming along nicely now. The centre console, ‘flat’ water pipes and two level floor concept works well. Mounting points for the 6 point racing harnesses have been selected and running the throttle cable is the last item to be sorted before stripping everything off, a quick period of miscellaneous welding and then blast and paint the chassis for (hopefully) final assembly. Still a lot of small things to do, though.

This is the first time that the dash, steering column and wheel has been in the car at the same time. I’m pleased with the way it’s coming together. It doesn’t look much yet, but should look good when finished. My interior theme is for black leather and carpet contrasted with alloy trims. The console switches are in and the gearshift gate is being fabricated now. The gearshift collar in the photos is still to be cut down to the correct height. You can’t see it in these shots, but the alloy adaptor between the steering wheel and column has come up well.

The roller throttle pedal mock-up is in place. The throttle pedal will be reversed so that the lever is on the right and the roller on the left. The roller will be made to the correct length for heel/toeing. The block below the pedals is to support my heels correctly and will be replaced with something a bit more elegant. Getting room for my size 13s has been quite a problem.

I’ll be getting the seats, dash, etc upholstered and sorting out some other machining, etc, while the chassis is being painted.

[Peter D]

Lance, you are powering along - the reduced tunnel / dual floor idea is brilliant !

At the risk of "teaching Grandma to suck eggs" - a couple of suggestions :

- Don't forget to put inspection/access panels in those side panels under the dash ends.

- Have a think about making up a thick plate with 3 x captive nuts for the inside of the door hinge mounting & open up the holes thru the body a bit - any door alignment changes will then be child's play via the bolts on the outside of the hinges.

I did neither, & regret it to this day !!

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Lance]

Peter,

Thanks for the suggestions. The interior panels are designed to be removed easily, if required, so OK there. Aligning the doors would be awkward at the best of times, doubly so in my case. The passenger door has the sound system head unit mounted in there. I’ll definitely be using your idea. Thanks again.

I’ve attached a few more images. The micro switch on the gear shift for reverse has worked out neatly. The front indicators are neat and, as far as I’m aware, legal, but being small, it’ll be interesting to see if they raise any eyebrows during licensing.

Regards,

Lance

[Craig White]

Lance, looking good.

Can I ask what you have used for front indicators? They look like the little hella side indicators with square base, round top.

If they are ADR 6/00 compliant they are ok, if they are side indicators or outline markers they are technically not compliant.

[Dimi]

Hi Lance

From my experience with the rego process and the Aust Design Rules your front indicators wont pass the luminance or the field of view requirements.

They have to have a certain level of brightness and from where they are mounted will not be seen from the required viewing angles from the front and sides.

I have much larger approved front indicators and still had to move them forward to allow the field of view required to get them passed.

The photos show what I had to do to get them passed.

Dimi

[Lance]

Yes, it’s going to be interesting isn’t it?

With my car I wanted the look of the round driving lights, but also wanted to mount the indicators there as well. Obviously, this meant that, with little room left over, the indicators had to be small. The only item that fitted was the Hella side light (well spotted) and it’s just what I was after. I haven’t been able to read the full ADR, but the main requirements for front indicators seems to be that they are 21W (for level of brightness) and achieve certain vision angles. The Hella units don’t allow 21W globes so we built our own housings to suit the Hella lens, the only part of the unit we used. I haven’t checked the angles accurately yet, but it looks to be close. There seems to be differences in how each state, etc interprets or implements the requirements. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes. If any of this is a problem with the authorities, I’ll be mounting some auxiliary indicators.

Regards,

Lance

[Lance]

Nostrils

These photos show the plug for the nostrils for my car. It’s in the last stages of being faired up and the mould will be cast from it soon. I’m incredibly pleased with the look (not surprising when you can see where the inspiration comes from) and they should be really efficient in dumping the hot air to atmosphere.

Heater Controls

We bought an heater control from a TVR on Ebay. I don’t like most of the heater controls I’ve seen. They’ve all been too modern or too clunky. On the other hand, the alloy TVR controls look great. To me anyway. Finding a suitable location for them, in the busy GT cockpit, was a bit hard, but an acceptable position was located, in the end. In the installed location, they fall to hand easily. You rest your fingers on the dash and move the wheels with your thumb. One wheel diverts fresh cool air into the cockpit; the other diverts heated air into the cockpit. Note the built in LEDs that shows the position of the control wheels. The dash will be covered in leather, which will trim the opening correctly.

Porsche Wing Mirrors

Just in case anybody is thinking of using my wing mirror solution of using Porsche wing mirrors, be warned that, in addition to setting the angles of the mirrors differently for left and right hand drive, those cunning Germans have also located the mirrors differently on each side of the car. Something I’ve never noticed before. The effect is that you need a mixture of right and left hand drive mirror parts, and a machined adaptor, to set them up correctly. Not too huge a task, but not all bolt on either.