SouthernGT No6

Dan Kasten

Supporter
Congratulations Nick! Car looks great! Wish you the best of luck with it. Love the reveal, looked like the firework on the left was getting close to your paint lol.
 
Few lockdown additions. I had to replace a circlip in the CV joint that had been dislodged, then it went again This issue deceived me for a while as I did not realise the free play in the shaft was in fact total play as the circlip on the cv joint had come out.

I was discussing the issue with Mick at Southern GT, he asked if I had checked the shafts to make sure there was a bit of play to allow for suspension movement. Checked both again and none one side, pulled the shaft out on the side which I thought had some, ooops. He made me up some spacers.

Decided to fit some sun visors time will tell how effective they will be. Also my long suffering wife although vowing she would not be going any distance in the car expressed some consternation on discovering the lack of luggage space Being the ever dutiful husband I said I would come up with a satisfactory solution. Apparently, my idea of what constitutes satisfactory, is different to hers. :(

 

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Also my long suffering wife although vowing she would not be going any distance in the car expressed some consternation on discovering the lack of luggage space Being the ever dutiful husband I said I would come up with a satisfactory solution. Apparently, my idea of what constitutes satisfactory, is different to hers. :(
Come on Nick, play fair, do you really need TWO hammers? Plenty of room then for Mrs Brough's needs! :D
 
So, an interesting few weeks. Have had a problem with the car since it was built, seemed to run great for a few miles, would then start backfiring running rough and generally misbehaving. In the end I bit the bullet and loaded trailered it up over the highest motorway in England to John Sleath Racing Doncaster.

Things did not start well as despite my thinking I was being careful I managed to scrape the bottom of the clip getting the car of the trailer. Then I could not select any gears but overcame this by winding the clutch master cylinder actuator rod out as far as it would go.

Once on the rolling road things started to improve, then a strange whistling noise started up. This was eventually tracked down to a few of the paper gaskets between the phenolic spacers vibrating as air passed through them. Some use of carb clearer sprayed around the inlet manifold showed a slight air leak in one area as well, so that stopped play.

Armed with some newfound knowledge, a new manifold gasket, and some special sealer I loaded the car onto the trailer and returned home. The car seemed to go down particularly well with young Asian lads as they went past. Lots of thumbs up, waving and photos being taken.

Was very chuffed when a friend asked if it was a photo of my car on John’s facebook page, it was, and he was very complementary about it. Also said he was looking forward to having it back once I had rectified the air leak issues so he could set it up properly.

I was a bit worried about the Edelbrock inlet Manifold gaskets John had recommended and sold me, as the fit seemed bad. Gave him a quick call and he confirmed he often had to fettle them when fitting.
Once everything was back together, I took the car out for a short test drive, and for the first time it began to sound like with my limited knowledge I expected a GT40 to be. Was having a great time until the last roundabout at the entrance to my close when suddenly there was a big cloud of escaping steam and water. Luckily just turned out to be a hose pipe leak on a connector.

My theory on the initial problem is the car would run fine until everything heated up. On that happened slight expansion was letting air past the carb and inlet manifold gaskets thereby causing the issue.
 

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Hi Nick,
nice to hear you're progressing to de-bug your '40. I've similar issues with inlet manifold gaskets. Generally the gaskets for the head to manifold are Ok, but the cork gasket between the head & cyl block is too thick, preventing the other gaskets to clamp correctly. Solution is to thin down the cork gasket or replace with a good silicone sealant
Regards,
Andy
 
Hi Nick,
nice to hear you're progressing to de-bug your '40. I've similar issues with inlet manifold gaskets. Generally the gaskets for the head to manifold are Ok, but the cork gasket between the head & cyl block is too thick, preventing the other gaskets to clamp correctly. Solution is to thin down the cork gasket or replace with a good silicone sealant
Regards,
Andy
Hi Andy,

Thanks for the advice, when I did it the first time the instructions recomended silicone for the head and cylinder block joint, so that one seemed OK. Used a very thin layer of recomended Reinzosil on the other gaskets and that seems to have done the trick.

Nick
 

Markus

SPRF40
Lifetime Supporter
Nick,
could you please share some details about your sun visors? How did you attach to the roof? Are the visors itself homemade or did you purchase them (Source)?

Thanks
Markus
 
What is up with that 180 hose??
Hi David,

I put a metal joiner in, with take off for a bleed to the header. First issue was my failure to realise the milkalor clamps were to wide for the recess on the joiner and the hose blew off last year, this resulted in a callout to the RAC who replaced the clamps. This time the clamps appear not to have been man enough and resulted in a water leak.

Hope better clamps have cured this and it is not just I have exceptional water pressure from my water pump :)
 
Well that went well!!!

The car had only been on the road a couple of months when returning from a car show in summer 2021 the engine started stalling when the clutch was pressed. Long story short, there was a lot of end float on the crank.

Logic pointed to the usual well documented issue with there not being enough clearance between the crank shaft and gearbox output shaft causing pressure on the crank when engaging the clutch and damaging its bearings. However, once the engine was out although there was damage on one central bearing it was on the opposite side to what was expected, causing much head scratching from the experts. In the end suspicion fell on the fact I had the sump Camcoated and the process involved the use of an abrasive aluminium media to clean the sump first. The thought is some of this media may have remained in the sump and contaminated the oil resulting in the bearing damage.

In November 2021 the engine was finally out and went to EDA Castleford to have a 2nd hand crank machined and installed back into it. Due to EDA being in high demand for their skills and the pandemic this took somewhat longer than expected, and came back to me around March 2022
Finally, with the engine back in the car I was able to retrieve the rear clip from the shed in the back garden where it had been safely stored after bubble wrapping it for protection 9 months previously.

Managing to get the rear clip back on the car with no scratches, I removed the bubble wrap and stood back to admire, pride as they say comes before a fall. quelle horreur blisters over some parts of the rear clip. Looked like during winter unbeknown to me water had penetrated the shed roof dripped onto the bubble wrap and got trapped, this combined I suspect with being heated and cooled over winter / summer had caused the bubbling.

Being back in the garage seemed to reduce the size of the blister bubbles somewhat but in certain lights they were the first thing I saw so I made the decision to get it resprayed along with rectifying some issues on the front clip. Then came the nervous wait and hope the new paint would match up with the old. It soon became obvious that the painters were going to treat my car with special love and care, but I took the precaution of taking them a packet of biscuits to maintain their enthusiasm, not rich tea substandard ones either, they were your full fat chocolate Hob Knobs. The painter also confirmed that the blisters had been caused by water in the primer not my leaky shed roof. I suspect this was exacerbated by the heating and cooling the clip got in over winter and early summer.

The paint rectification was completed, and I was told they had a few pictures they had taken of the whole process, 45 photos later it certainly looked good to me, it seemed even better in the flesh. Possibly a bit to shiny for the purists not helped by having to use modern paint, but I like it.
 

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