what the go with the windscreen, easy to source?
what the go with the windscreen, easy to source?
Originally Posted by FatBoy
Yeah, they seem pretty easy to source. We've found a couple of options. Just need to measure up the car to make sure we order the right one.
Definitly needs more triangles!
"Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?" "Whats that?" "A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."
Definitely going about the right way to tackle this sort of project. Better to strip it all down, remove the useless crap and replace all the old worn shit with fresh new shit. Will make you feel alot better once its on the road knowing that you know whats been done to every square inch of the car and that its all spot on.
This.
Chassis looks flimsier than some of the billycarts I made as a kid.
Last edited by peal; 09-11-11 at 12:12 PM.
A guy in the US just sent me the original build manual. Score!
Yep, I agree that the chassis is quite flimsy compared to the modern GT40 kits. Might look into some triangulation. Will have to speak to Tim and the old man about this. Hopefully this weekend we'll have it completely stripped and ready to rip in to
One on ebay atm
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FORD-GT40...item19ca936e96
Everything about that one makes ours look very accurate.... Windscreen, doors, dash, front end, back end. Damn yank interpretation I think!
Yeah I was thinking the same. It's a Mk III replica. Different dash, different fuel tank location, etc. I certainly haven't seen one like that before.
Its a thing called a fiberfab Avenger/Valkyrie. They were originally based on a beetle floorpan.
Not so much a replica as "inspired by"
Yep our weekend involved stripping and modelling. You never know what's going on in the Willis garage...
Now, by stripping and modelling I was referring to the car. Of course.
So, after the last blog we were down to a chassis with a dash. It looked something like this.
First up, I attacked the wiring. I labelled as much as I could, but there were a few wires that had me scratching my head. I'm sure that won't bite me in the future..... much.
Mid-way through the de-wiring
Here's what the back of the dash looked like after I'd unplugged everything. Fortunately, the previous owner had put plugs on most things so I only need to snip a few wires. Champion! Here's what the dash looked like after "de-wiring" and here's the loom I removed.
It was at this point in the day that my mate Jim Groutsch sent me a text saying "I'm on my way with my computer. Set up a desk for me". Now Jim is a Process Engineer who is also a self-confessed petrol head and has his own Porsche-powered kit car. Over the course of the week, Jim and I had been discussing chassis design. We came to the idea of creating a 3D model of our GT40 that we can use later for chassis and suspension development. Fortunately, Jim is an experienced user of Autodesk Inventor which he has used for years for work at MetEng.
I figured Jim was bringing his laptop, so I got out a camping table for him. Little did I know, he would show up with a 30" monitor and a full desktop! This necessitated a quick desk solution.
Now we're looking serious
OK, so Jim plugged away with his computer and tape measure, while Dad and I got stuck into the car.
Soon the dash was gone.
Like the "temporary" storage location for the dash?
Next we attacked the side panelling and floor. Before we knew it, we were down to a raw chassis. Horray!
This is how far Jim had got after a few hours. The chassis is pretty much finished. He has started working on the rear trailing arms. The ones below are not exact. Just a test.
3 degrees body roll.
So that's where we are at the moment. Things are coming along nicely. It's now time to clean up that chassis. Oh yeah, another fantastic thing happened to me last week... I received an original manual for the car. More on that in a few days. I'm sick of typing and you're probably sick of reading.
Great thread, looking forward to updates, both virtual and real.
no turning back!
So the real Q now is.. anyone got any good ideas for ways to relatively easily improve the chassis design.
Don't think we are quite at the level of dedication to go completely re-jigging the suspension design though..
POWER CHIP free since 2003.
great thread!
are you going to get the chassis sand blasted then re-coat it?
Mein gott! How to improve the chassis design you ask... Well, you couldn't make it worse so there's a confidence boost I guess. Get your model, model in suspension members simply, model in springs using rigid members instead and start with some torsion and bending loads. Then start adding braces. But really, you're pushing it uphill starting from that design. But that also leaves a lot of room to make spectacular gains, depends if you're a glass half full or empty type.
See the posts about ed's gt40 dreaming chassis for a start. I posted in some bare frame DRB gt40 chassis pics that will give you some useful ideas straight away.
*ahem* not dreaming.... but alas....
a simple start to helping your chassis without remaking stuff: throw a diagonal across every large, square open space, particularly in the vertical planes. then look for random free-floating corners that look like they could be tied diagonally to something without fouling other necessary components in the way
edit, found 5min for MS paint
Last edited by ed; 15-11-11 at 02:40 AM.
Great thread !!!
Nice work, gives me some inspiration to get stuck into the Sabre even though I probably won't be stripping it back that far
2012 SV TDCI Territory
2009 LV XR5 Turbo
1986 Sierra RS Cosworth
1971 Sabre MK2
Thanks for the feedback guys. Yep, time to look at some chassis improvements.
TCR, you have a Sabre kit car? The guy Jim that I mention above has one as well. I'm sure he'd love to catch up.
wow this things going further quicker than i expected. nice work fellas!
Discussions of twin turboing the engine failing to load.
"If you can make black marks on a straight from the time you turn out of a corner until the braking point of the next turn, then you have enough horsepower." - Mark Donahue Penske Porsche 917
"In Japan we no give fark for Subaru" - Trust Japan Technical Director
(TM - AVENGE)
"You can never have enough power. I remember when we had Group B cars... THEN we had enough power!"
Juha Kankkunen - Rally of Argentina '02
What do you mean? I think the old man has secret plans for twin turbos. Realistically, the gearbox will probably last 10s and the suspension will not cope well, so this one is on the backburner.
Yeah the old man did add it to the 'to do' list we have going on dropbox....
POWER CHIP free since 2003.
See my thread in Street Cars
2012 SV TDCI Territory
2009 LV XR5 Turbo
1986 Sierra RS Cosworth
1971 Sabre MK2
Hah if it had a Fraud engine the distributer would sit between the seats
My apologies to the neighbours
My sincere apologies to the neighbours, Saturday was a very loud day. It was the day of cleaning up the chassis. It just so happened that Tim finally returned from a few months out bush to lend a hand, too. About time...
So all up, we had Dad and Tim on angle grinder and "Rapid Stipper"on drill. Plus me welding and angle grinding on the workbench and yet somehow, Jim managed to continue work on the model despite all the noise.
Jim at work on the K-frame model
Chaos in the garage
This is how the chassis is looking after a few hours of work. It looks 100% better, but there is still more work to be done. Tim reckons that everytime he turned around he found something else to attack. We've managed to destroy one of those knotted wire wheels on the angle grinder and have pretty much disintegrated the drill-driven "Rapid Stripper" disc.
Get this, Tim finally returns from out bush and we catch him sucking back on a stubby. Just can't get the staff these days
In the mean time, I finally managed to finish welding the workbench. This has seriously taken me months, since I have been busy with work and enjoying GT40 stuff instead of workbench stuff in my spare time (plus I suck at welding). I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. It's been a good lesson in metal fabrication.
A coat of fresh paint makes any crappy old steel look professional.
On Sunday I got stuck into the bench tops. I soon put saw dust through the whole house. Unfortunately Jim's makeshift desk has now been turned into the bottom shelf of my bench.
And here it is in it's final resting place. I had to get my mate Jarrod around to help me move it. My wife Kristen couldn't lift it. I guess that's what you want in a good workbench...
The engine block is back!
Now in other news, you're not gonna believe this, but the engine block is back! We dropped around at the engine shop on Saturday and got the normal response (it's not ready). To make up for it, the guy dropped the block around to our house that afternoon. Horray! It's nice to have it back. The downside is, that it's one more thing that's waiting for us to work on.
Believe it or not, the cylinder on the right is the one that was sleeved. It looks excellent now.
"No Bella, I have no idea what happened to all the Cling Wrap"
The model is progressing
Jim has done an awesome job with the model. First up on Saturday, he finished measuring and modelling the chassis, next up he modelled the rear semi-trailing arms. Following that, he hit the intricate K-frame. It took a fair bit of remeasuring to get that modelled correctly. The main problem being that the model gave too much negative camber. It wasn't til we took to the K-frame with some straight pieces of timber that we discovered that there actually is a fair bit of camber there.
On further thought, I remembered reading in the KCC GT40 manual that when you change the hubs to Ford Granada 5-stud type, you must move the mounting hole of the lower control arm outwards by 12mm to compensate. We trialled this with the model and it made it worse. Moving it inwards, however, gives close to 0 degrees. Maybe they got this wrong or maybe we have made a mistake. Either way, we'll leave it to a wheel alignment shop to get baseline measurements before we mess with it.
Jim at work
Here are some pics of the model and how it looks now.
Jim has now started looking at steering angles and bump steer (which don't look great) so far. A few guys on the various forums have been trying to convince us to convert the rear to GT40-style suspension. In fact, one guy has even sent me plans of an exact GT40. What a legend! How far we go with the chassis is a tough call to make. The chassis is currently in the prime state to do these sorts of mods, but it's gonna add considerable time and cost to the project. There really is a lot we can do at this stage in the form of rear suspension, front suspension, bracing and roll bars. We're a bit worried that the extra time and money will cause us to lose motivation. What are your thoughts?
did you coat that engine with WD40 or similar before cling wrapping it? if not those bores will rust in no time..
good progress though, the model of is looking great. dont spend too much time changing the chassis, like you say you could get caught up improving this thing literally forever. Slap some triangles around the obvious spots and put it back together and drive it.
'06 Mitsu Pajero DiD - Daily and Boat tow rig
HQ SS - rollin' on 14's
Yep, the block got a good soaking of CRC before I wrapped it up
Leave the suspension layout as is. It's not a race car chassis but will still be quick, fun and look better than anything else doing it. So enjoy it for what it is.
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