Ronnie Spain
- Thread starter Cobraownr
- Start date
Ronnie was running on quite a hectic schedule during his three week swing across the U.S. (coast to coast) and into Canada, so I'm not surprised that he had come and gone from your area before you knew it. Ronnie spent the past week with me, first in Orlando, from where we drove to Naples to the Collier Museum to look at Mk II #1031 (their other GT40, #1049, was still up in storage), and then in Maryland. I arranged to get Ronnie in to see #1072, after which he spent a half day poking through every nook and cranny of my GT40 tub. His opinion about its condition: "Remarkable!" He was amazed at how rust free it was, and how original--both of which I have been saying for years. The appearance of my #1040 at the SAAC convention at Lime Rock in July 2000 was an aberration. After being nicely cleaned to bare metal in 1989, it still looked great in 2000 until it got stuck out in my yard in a thunder storm about a week before the SAAC convention and developed a wonderful coating of surface rust by the time we hit Lime Rock. I will agree with what others have said about its appearance there: it looked like a rusted piece of junk. But, another light bead blasting got rid of the surface rust, and a paint job prevented any more of it from forming. At the SAAC convention in Charlotte in 2001, the tub looked great, just as it does now.
Doc Watson
Lifetime Supporter
Nice chassis Don, What paint did you use for the tub? Im having a replica tub made now from zinc coated steel and will probably use two part zinc epoxy primer as a base coat for it. Is there foam in the roof section and elsewhere in the chassis for stuffness and soundproofing?
Regards
Andy
Regards
Andy
Sorry, I can't be any help on the paint. I checked with the fellow who did the work, and he didn't recall what he used. Whatever was used was intended only as a temporary coating to prevent more surface rusting after the tub was lightly blasted to remove the rust that formed after the bare metal tub was soaked and sat for a week. This paint will be removed when the tub gets a full resto to correct the altered roof height (from the '67 Monza incident) and unequal wheelbases (from '66 Le Mans). I will then have it repainted with whatever is "correct" and designed for the long term.
