T70 barn find ? - Page 4

Johan · 05-25-05, 08:59 AM

There was one but now it is full of stuff for the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC). I have not found the heater core yet ! Hah !
This picture is taken from above the right side door opening , down into the fuel cell access opening.

Johan · 05-25-05, 09:03 AM

Joe, how far are you on your car ? Looks great ! What are you going to do for wheels ?

Joe T · 05-25-05, 10:33 AM

I'm still at the pile of bits and beer stage!
I have a body and sort of rolling spaceframe chassis of unknown origin. Mainly Lotus suspension parts? some original parts. The wheels that came with it are knock on Wolfrace slot mags? It was started in the 70's then put away.
My first decision is whether to use the spaceframe? some of the panelling has been done.
As you can tell I have a lot of work ahead.

Johan · 05-25-05, 10:58 AM

Joe, I have a lot of work to do on my replica as well. I actually have three Lola T70 replicas I'm working on. One is the Sunoco Spyder you may have seen a picture of. I love that car !
I am racing it twice in the month of June and am very excited about the opportunity to finally drive the car. The other two are squirrled away in a weekend holiday cabin I own. Some buddies and I carried them through the door sideways and we put one in the living room, and the other in the dining room. If my wife sees that crap she will have my a$$. If I can make it through this weekend without her discovering them, I think I'm safe ! My house is full of Lola crap from the basement to the attic. There was an intake manifold in the dishwasher last night and I got busted for that.
Just keep at it, that's what I keep telling myself !
Getting this new (the subject of this thread)car has in no way diminished my appreciation of the others I have been working on. I just have more to do , that's all.

Joe T · 05-25-05, 11:13 AM

Your Spyder looks ace, but I still prefer the coupe, as you can appreciate your pics really get me fired up, its a rare occurance to see one like that in bits and all the more interesting because of it. I havent even finished building my garage and its full already! I have got to clear a few other projects, then by that time I should have made a decision what to do.

Good luck on the racing, hope to see pics

Cheers

Johan · 05-25-05, 11:29 AM

Everybody seems to prefer the coupe, but there is a certain feeling one gets cruising the backroads in a spyder that can't be had in the coupe. Regarding the bits and pieces, I'm ready to get the next load. This AM we put the chassis on the "operating table" (a wheeled table). I guess we are going to dis-assemble the front and rebuild the front suspension and cooling system. The car's bulkheads are in pretty good shape. The worst aspect of them is where the aluminum master and slave cylinders are attached to the steel bulkhead. A bit of corrosion there. No real rust to speak of. There are a lot of dents from jacks and hitting rumble strips, but no rust.

Joe T · 05-25-05, 11:53 AM

I dont doubt you are right, hopefully one day I will get a chance to try a spyder, how thick do you reckon the steel in the bulkheads are?

Johan · 05-25-05, 12:21 PM

I have a gage checker and plan to check that. Mine are pretty thin. I would guess 18 gage. I need to find out for sure to help verify the cars authenticity.

David Pozzi · 05-26-05, 02:29 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I have a gage checker and plan to check that. Mine are pretty thin. I would guess 18 gage. I need to find out for sure to help verify the cars authenticity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Greetings all!

Johan,
My T-70 MkI is .035" I forget what gage that is. Yours is definately a MkII by the suspension locations I see. That is a very good suspension. While the brakes have thin rotors, they work very well, but after a fiew laps on a race track they begin to lose out to the thick vented type. There are coupe type brakes you can upgrade to, but they would not be an advantage for street use.

The double hump dash was common for bodies from Mac McLendon, he had molds for the MKIII coupe and also the MKIII "B" coupes and both had the same dash with double humps which is NOT the original way they were done.

When you feel like posting your chassis number, I have a book by John Starkey that lists most of the history of the T-70 chassis. I can look it up for you.
I've got some pics of My T-70 MKI Spyder on my web page below.
http://www.PozziRacing.com

Pete. · 05-26-05, 03:41 AM

Welcome David, I had a look at your site, some really nice pictures. Thanks for the post.

Johan · 05-26-05, 09:05 AM

Really neat photos David ! I've talked to you in the past, maybe 3-4 years ago. There was a point in time that my car was wrecked and Lola had to re-certify it's chassis number in order that it be allowed to race. The number that they certified it to be is SL71/34, according to a letter in the file. I asked Mac if he knew of the car, and he said he did a brake job on it in 1982. He said also that it was SL71/34.
I'm not saying I don't believe it, just that it is hard to believe.
Your car is fantastic ! What kind of wheels does it have ? My car has a wierd setup with six threaded rods coming out of the hub holding on a mag wheel. I thought they were supposed to be knock-offs.
This is my replica spyder....looks sort of like your car.
Hope to see your car in person some day...

MK -IV J6 · 05-26-05, 10:40 AM

MKI & MK II are bolt on. KO's came later and some upgraded as I did. Brakes for street are totally fine.
Welcome David.
It's nice to have more owners of original cars on the site.
Johan
Your tub likely is SL71-34. The only thing that would get stickey is if someone is using that chassis #. IMO the Bartz conection would give you a very strong claim.
Best

Johan · 05-26-05, 12:04 PM

Thanks for that info. It is little things like that issue with the way that the wheels attach keeping me skeptical about the originality of the car.Also, the front aluminum radiator support structure appears to have been fabricated specifically for the radiator, so can anyone tell me if the radiator appears original ? It is a race set-up, not a street set-up, so if it is not from 1966, then the car possibly has later racing history.
Little details that create questions.

I'm clearing them up though as fast as they arise, so I too am now fairly certain that it is Sl71/34. NOone else is recognized by Lola (the old Lola cars Ltd.)as owning the car.There is a complete folder of information showing the car being converted by the Bartz brothers. The car has traveled 733 miles since 1980, 200 miles of which were done in 1982.
I put it on the wheeled table, took some of the frontend apart, in order to start working on it. I started polishing up the tub and then stopped, because it started looking too good. I'm going to leave it old for a while longer.The car has a very unique smell to it. Sort of like the inside of a submarine, or an old locomotive, or the inside of a lighthouse. Maybe rat droppings come to think of it !
Smells like HISTORY !
Rob, can you still do the old photo thing ?

Richard Timte · 05-26-05, 03:06 PM

Johan,

Nice find lucky you. One request, could you post some pictures of the rear suspension and transaxle.

Thanks

Johan · 05-26-05, 03:40 PM

Richard, thanks for saying i"m lucky. I think so too and I'm doing my best to share this with the others that are interested in Lolas.In that spirit, I'm posting the pictures, not to show off like my wife says.
"who would give a damn about that ?" she says about half my pictures, and she does not know that I have so many cars either !
I'll be glad to post pictures of the rest of the "rig" but I have to make a trip to pick it up first. I could only get the chassis the first trip.I felt it was best to get it first. Some parts are being delivered today (the rear bodywork has been in someones office for a while).
One thing I have to say.
I like my replica T70 just as much as this one. I've had a few days to ponder it and they are all neat. Original cars are great to look at, but I would currently choose to race my replica if they were both running. To race the original car would require the replacement of many of the parts, the sum of which is what makes the car so cool to begin with.
I may go Jim's route and drive it on the street, but then the Hewland is no good for that. Perhaps a compromise would be to run the car in a lesser class than group 7 (Championship of Makes). Group 5 perhaps (1960's sportsracers )
Does anybody else on this forum race your cars ?

Tim Kay · 05-26-05, 03:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
......and she does not know that I have so many cars either !

[/ QUOTE ]
Now, there you go. A man who knows what to say and when to say it [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Johan · 05-26-05, 04:03 PM

Are you saying she might be reading the forum ?
Crike, she's behind me !

David Pozzi · 05-26-05, 05:37 PM

Johan,
I remember your blue T-70, very nice car!
Your photo of the front wheel looks like a correct wheel but it kinda looks like an aluminum wheel.
If it's a two piece wheel it is probably a Phil Schmidt reproduction wheel.

All roadsters had the bolt on wheels, coupes had the knock off wheels. F5000 Lolas (T-140/142) had bolt on but used a steel hub, T-70 bolt on hubs were aluminum, Knock off's were steel of course.

The radiator is very close to original but looks a little thicker. I had to make a thicker core for mine because it would overheat with the stock one. The aluminum mounting looks non-original.

I may have a photo of the correct mounting, but there were two basic nose shapes for a T-70 spyder, one with headlights was used up thru the MKIII roadsters, but one without headlights was also used on MkIII spyders and was retrofitted onto the MKI and MKII cars because it was lighter and had less front end lift at high speeds.

The non headlight nose was modified by Penske and had the nose cut and flared out by pulling the glass outward just ahead of the front tires. This hides the tires a bit in front fiew helping aero, also this mod flattened the top of the "fender" just forward of the wheel center. Some other teams ran the "Penske" nose too, not sure if Penske originated it or got it from someone else.

Anyway, the point I'm making about the nose is, if your car had the non-headlight nose on it, that nose is lower and the radiator would have been dropped down about two inches to make it fit that nose. If later the coupe nose was put on, then something had to be changed to raise the rad back up.

My radiator mount is low but I made a spacer inside the nose to hold it in the proper position. That way, I can use either the headlight or non headlight nose.

There were a fiew coupe replacement tubs that became roadsters but retained the coupe knock offs. Original coupes had two battery box cutouts in the front edge of the drivers seats, spyders had one on the left side. This took a Varley battery on it's side.

MKII's had a longer lower wishbone on the rear suspension, a good idea. My MKI was shorter, the MkIII was back to shorter, then there were two or three MKIII "B" spyders built that had VERY long upper and lower links/wishbones. Those were the "best" but Lola screwed up the front suspension on all MKIII and III B's, they tried to add more neg camber gain by raising the upper balljoint, but that raised the allready too-high roll center even higher! It's something like 8" when it should be 3"!

They also took more and more weight out of the tub, and by the MKIII B, they were getting more and more flexable in torsional rigidity.

The MKII was the best in my opinion.

I can't find my Starkey book right now, I guess it's near the bottom of my book/catalog pile! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I saw the yellow Bartz car at McLendon's shop years ago when he was in Ventura California. It had a B coupe cab and tail but an A coupe nose grafted on over a B coupe type chassis. I guess they perferred the older nose, it sticks out less for street use.

MK -IV J6 · 05-26-05, 07:16 PM

David
Johan's Blue one is a replica. (Heritage) There were 4 Donohue T70 Spyders. I have one of the four Pensky/Donohue Spyders
SL 71-32. It's now a coupe. Johan's Bartz car wasn't the yellow one. It's the first one they built. SL 71-34.
The Yellow one wasn't built on a T 70 Tub but was 160.