Mitch Krause's RCR GT40 Build

[Chuck]

Randy

You are doing so much work on your way to perfection. But I really wonder if much of the mis fit is due to the years in storage.

I spent a lot of time fitting mine, and used filler to align some surfaces and close some gaps, but a fraction of what you have had to do.

As an aside, when I finished the body work it seemed just about perfect to my inexperienced eye. Yet when the body was put back on painted there were some slight changes in the fit. Subtle, but present nonetheless.

Seems that fiberglass is a material that flexes over time and will expand and contract with temperature variations. Tight seams look great but could be a problem on a hot sunny day.

You are doing a great job and it will look stunning when done. But I really wonder if the body you are working on now may have been shaped a bit differently when it left RCR.

 

[Randy V]

I've looked at hundreds of pictures of the original Mk1 cars and most of them were fairly rough back in the day - and I believe that most of their restorations have taken them to a level well beyond than as originally delivered..
I'm not looking for absolute perfection, but pretty darned nice would be good!
The shut-line gaps are a focus are for me and I also plan on getting all the lumps out of it. When examining pictures of the originals carefully, I've seen these gaps ranging from almost non existant to what looks like 3/8" or more..

I'm no stranger to fiberglass cars, particularly racing cars as a number of them were Corvettes. One thing I know about Fiberglass is that it is quite literally forever plastic and will move, change shapes, shrink and expand at varying rates. The shut-lines I will be looking for ultimately will be 1/8 to 3/16" after paint.

Did I store the body improperly? Other than not having support under the center of the spider for a couple of months that the car lived in my trailer, I don't believe so. Now while it was at the bodyshop for 4 years, the doors were off of it much of the time and were leaned against a wall, but nothing stacked on them. I suppose all my wife's Elvis albums will be warped too...

I really don't care anymore at this point. They are straight now.. Will they stay that way? It's anyone's guess. In the end, this car will be better than the cars that the molds were taken from and that's good enough for me.

 

[Randy V]

I spent a good 6 hours today working on the door-tops and spider again and worked the top of the windshield area..

Oddly I found that the windshield has a high spot in it along the right side adjacent to the A-pillar..
Not much I can do about that, although a few years ago, I did spend a full day sanding the edge of the left side where it was jammed up against the A-pillar and had to remove about 1/8".. That was a lot of very tedious work.

I also found one of the problems with the right-side door not coming into a perfect repeatable alignment with the front clip. I had already spent a good 7-8 hours getting the door leveled with the trailing edge of the front clip so this was bothering me. I finally found the culprit. The body shop had taken loose and only lightly snugged the bolts on the right side hinge where it bolts to the tub. No reason for that at all in my opinion. Those had been finalized years ago and now only the tension of the lock-washers was holding it in place
After tightening down the hinge, that pulled the door in tighter in the front. I now have to re-surface the door to bring it out about 1/16" to be level with the clip again.
I picked up a tub of black guide-coat powder and used it on the roof. It works okay, but not as well as spritzing spray paint on the body.

 

[Eric McClellan]

Glad to see you back at it Randy! I remember waaaaayyy back when you talked about this in the 6 hour car ride from Madison.

Stop on by my place any time, I'll getcha a beer

 

[Randy V]

Just Chippin' away at it Eric... I guess if it were easy, everyone would be building one...

 

[Eric McClellan]

Just Chippin' away at it Eric... I guess if it were easy, everyone would be building one...

True damn story!

Glad you didn't give up on it. I don't know all the details, but it sounds like a long stupid road, none of which seems to be your doing.

 

[Randy V]

February 14, 2015
I’ve had to take a little time off for some health issues, but other than having a cold now, I’m back in the saddle again.

Rear Clip Latches – Done!

I got back to the rear clip and installed the SARMA Latches. It took a little material removal inside the reliefs in the body to allow me to move the latch up higher in order to latch properly. I also had to trim some material off the release lever to shorten it by roughly 2mm. I will be installing a secondary latch system on the rear clip as a safeguard in case one or both latches fail.

 

[Randy V]

February 15, 2015
Back to the doors..

If you recall last week, I found that the body shop had loosened up the chassis side of the door hinge. Unfortunately, I had already leveled out that door and now I needed to do it over again.
In the following pictures you’ll see how I used the BlackJack Black Powder Guide coat to figure out just how much filler it was going to take and where.

Guide Coat put in the door and I used 180G Long Board to get the profile of where my low spot is. You can see the darker shade here.

I mixed up a golf-ball size mound of Rage Gold filler and applied it over the residue of the Guide Coat. Blackjack assures the user that the residue does not compromise either bond quality or paint bonding.

While the bondo was just getting firm, I used razor blade and my two hand saws to cut the shut line gap back open.

I re-applied the Blackjack on the door over the still hardening Bondo. First I gave the bondo a quick wipe with a paper towel with lacquer thinner on it to remove the waxy surface that comes with the use of polyester filler.

Thirty minutes of careful hand sanding with an 80G Medium and 180G Long Board and you can see the area is pretty well level now with the front clip. Note that the Black Guide Coat powder does discolor the Bondo. It was necessary, however, to apply the bondo over the guide coat rather than rely on my memory for the precise area to apply it.

 

[Randy V]

February 22, 2015
Doors are done!

After tightening the right side door hinge, the door had to be re-blended to the front clip. That was last weekend. This weekend, I set my sights on finishing the doors by re-blending the door tops to the spider. This also upset the shut-lines, so they needed to also be addressed. I won’t bore you with a series of pictures on this, just know that I spent quite a bit of time with my long-board with 180G paper and had to mix more bondo to accomplish the desired end result.
At this point, I am as far as I can go with the doors and spider with dry sandpaper. I will need to wet-sand them in the warmer weather this coming spring in order to reflect the roof with the florescent lights..

 

[Randy V]

February 22, 2015
Bringing up the rear…

Yep – you guessed it. Now it’s time to move to the rear clip.
I have gained enough confidence to at least start on it. The rear hips have been glassed on and an abundant quantity of Bondo-hair and Rage-Gold Bondo have already been applied. It is very lumpy and wavy. Here’s where I am going to learn what real bodywork is all about. Working out the kinks in what looks like dozens of compound curvatures. Then there are those that reverse curvature - such as where the oil cooler ducts jut out from the clip on each side.
Recapturing the beauty and the lines of the original Lemans Hipped GTs is my goal… I hit the clip with some 220G paper and a thing 3M block just to remove a lot of crud from the body and to generate some powder..
I spent about a 30 minutes, eyes closed, running my hands through the powder on the surfaces. Letting my fingers be my eyes as they undulated up and down over the curvaceous body – trying to sense dips and rises where they did not belong. I thought of all the scratch builders who even built their own bodies from scratch. Surely these builders are in possession artisan skills well beyond mine..
I felt clearly out of my element here and wondered if this was a talent I was going to be able to teach myself or not.
I have to… Try…

After an hour or so of talking to myself, this car and bodywork in general – I just turned out the lights and stepped out of the shop for another week..

More next week – I hope..

 

[Bill Musarra]

Randy,
I feel your pain. This phase of the body work is the most time consuming. I ran into the very thing you are talking about, when I redid my rear cliphttp://www.gt40s.com/forum/gt40-tech-exterior-interior-ac-trim/42492-rookie-mistake-concequences.html
Just know, to let yourself trust in what you feel. There are some great videos on the Eastwood site where Kevin Tetz talks about getting the panels straight on compound surfaces. Here are several to look at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sP9Ty0jQy8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gms-PS2GcOE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwb72qRT8hQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnkH2udwEnA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sP9Ty0jQy8&list=PL8UO6TbfghxgGQ5ezfW0n014dyvkMRNEQ

Bill

 

[Randy V]

Bill, those are some great videos and I have learned a lot from them.. Thanks for posting.

I will be doing a lot of water checks on the rear clip to get the reflective qualities right. Particularly the right curvatures. It will likely take a long time to achieve the right contours. I also have a contour guage to get the rough shape, but it's not that good at anything less than 1/8"..

Some days I think about just painting it white which is the most forgiving color when it comes to bodywork..

 

[Randy V]

Sorry for the gap in the Blog... I have gotten some work done, but progress has been very slow. There will be more updates this weekend.

 

[Randy V]

April 3, 2015

Hey FATSO!!!!

In this installment – we’ll take a trip back in time on my build in order to answer a few questions that I’ve received about my car.
The rear clip (or clam-shell as called by some) is not your standard piece of work. It’s been modified by hanging quarter panels on it that are 2” wider than stock to cover the extended rear suspension option offered by the chassis manufacturer. This is a way to sort of cheat your way to a Lemans look without requiring 12-14” wide rear wheels and some very expensive tires.
Below you see pictures taken along the way with the parts it takes to give your car the WIDE-HIP look.
There are gaps in that some of the work was done by the bodyshop that I had contracted to do the work and no pictures were taken.

Standard Rear Clip

+2 Wide Hip Kit

Clip with the flairs hung over the top of the standard bodywork

Side View

+2 Suspension Components

Stock Suspension parts

 

[Randy V]

April 4, 2015

COOL-IT!!!!

Brake & Oil Cooler Ducts
This installment goes back in time again and then fast forwards to where we are today.
The standard rear clip has the side duct cutout but no duct work was supplied. Most will just skip the ductwork and let the air just blow into the rear arch. Not this guy – remember what I said about phony or inoperative scoops – they have no place on my car.
A quick phone call to our friend Bill Hough (Datona Bill) and we’ve ordered and received a set of rear brake cooler and oil cooler ducts. These are very lightweight fiberglass and rather rough competition pieces. It takes some twisting and cajoling to get the brake duct stuffed into place. The 90 degree oil cooler duct goes next. Then comes the real fun – making them mate with the side scoop.
Enough yakking and on with the pictures…

Poor picture, but you see an empty side-scoop below;

Brake Duct

Oil Cooler Duct

Brake Duct in place – bottom view

Brake Duct in place – Side View

Scoop Front view – Looking good, but rough…

Ducts are now rough-blended into the Side-Scoop

It looked pretty rough to me and even though it’s on the bottom side of the clip and very few people would see it but me, I decided to somehow blend the ducts into the bodywork. More Bondo-Hair and Rage Gold coming right up!

Yes – cardboard –

Man that gapping hole in the bodywork looks like it’s going to collect a lot of crud.. Better seal it off..

I had a sheet of fiberglass I had made a few years ago – perfect size

 

[Randy V]

April 4, 2015

Leveling the playing field (deck)

I’ve been struggling a bit with getting the deck on the rear clip to look/feel right. Apparently when the bodyshop cut the rear clip up to install the flairs, the deck sagged on the left side and has a high spot on the right side. I’d been slowly and deliberately been working the low spots with consecutive layers of Rage Gold filler and things were getting better, but still not to my satisfaction. Then I saw what Dwight had done to support the rear deck of his GT40. He made a wooden framework and glassed it into the underside of the clip. I determined right then and there that I would do the same.. The pictures that follow will show the journey through Bondo Land, failed Fiberglass and finally success in at least getting the deck supported. It will take me a little while to get back to the top-side of the deck as I decided to do as much of the underside of the deck as possible before I reinstall it on the chassis.

The POOP Deck…

Shining the deck with the overhead light to gauge how far off it is

Right side is pretty good

Low spot just under the grill opening on the top of the deck

Layers.... and layers....

Getting close – so using the carbon black powder guide coat

Still not close enough

Here I am 5 more applications and still not where I want to be

The Bondo is roughly 3/16” thick on the left side of the vent

It’s at this point that I see Dwight’s post about the wooden framework – so off comes the clip and I start to work…
I built the framework of ¾” x ¾” (1x1) Clear white Oak. Since the bottom of the clip had already been smoothed off with filler and primed, I needed to sand that away to give me some fiberglass to bond to.

I cut up a bunch of 3” Fiberglass cloth and mixed up a load of Vinylester resin and lay it all up, carefully working out the air to get maximum structural integrity..

UGH! 24 hours later the resin is not even starting to set up.. I put a heater underneath the deck to just “maybe” get the catalytic process jump-started;

Of course gravity being what it is – the deck now starts to sag from the heat – so I truss up some support to pull it back up to the wooden framework that’s screwed into the side supports of the clip..

:furious::furious::furious::furious::furious::furious::furious::furious::furious::furious:

6 hours later – I gave up… Pulled the plug on the heater and went in the house – knowing full well what I would have to do next… The next day I returned to my little shop and the mess that awaited.. The fiberglass had started to stiffen only slightly.. At this rate it would take months for it to cure and even then, could not be trusted..
I correspond with renowned FRP expert Bill Hough, who confirmed my suspicions and said that any resin or catalyst that was more than 6 months old since being opened was not stable and should be tossed..
I spend the next 4 hours cleaning up the mess with lacquer thinner and acetone..
The remaining 3 quarts of resin and the catalyst all went outside to be spread out and evaporated before being trashed..

This time – I used what I should have used in the first place – West Systems Epoxy Resin

I will be cutting a full width aluminum panel to fit over the rear deck support structure and that will be a fine heat deflector. More on that in a later installment.

 

[Steve]

Randy, I'm impressed and quite humbled. Your pace seems to be picking up. Paint in a month or so?

 

[Rune]

Are someone producing this SARMA Aircraft latches today?
Rune

 

[Randy V]

Thanks Steve.. Primer maybe this year... Paint next year... That's the plan and the budget...

Rune I could not say on the latches... When I bought these I believe that he only had 6 left and I bought 4 of them... He was an individual I found through another member here.. They were about $220 shipped.
I wish I had bought the other two that he had as spares..
I believe SARMA is still in business. If you would like measurements I can pull one apart and get those for you..

 

[Al Jones]

Randy - Just one thing to watch for while you're doing the rear clip. I don't know if you can set it up for a trial fit but check carefully if you are using the headers supplied by RCR. The uppermost tube of the set I was supplied contacted the clip just aft of the cutout under the "glass" when the clip was closed. You should check and adjust as necessary before you paint/finalize it. Al