Tornado Build - www.gt40builder.com

[TrevS]

Thanks for all the support guys, encouragement and kind words. It's comments from you lot that help keep me going. I know once the build starts progressing again I'll forget all about any previous issues and I know that if I sold the car with seeing the project through it would seem like a massive failure and I'd always have that doubt in my mind if it was the right thing to do.

So here is a picture more for myself to keep me focused over the next few weeks. Ahhh, one day:

Trev

 

[Jon Briggs]

Trev,
I'm in the same boat as you. I have an unfinished project and the chassis is green with the floor already riveted on. My plan was to leave the floor attached, and get it shot blasted and powder coated in black. This way there should be a seal of powder coat between the panel and chassis. Also it won't have the rivets rolling around in the chassis and the chassis won't be filled with blast through the rivet holes. I don't think the sealant should be a problem as the oven for the powder coat should not be hot enough to melt it (famous last words!)

Let me know how you get on.

 

[TrevS]

Hi all

I've emailed Andy at Tornado to find out what he recommends I do in regards to leaving or removing the floor so I'll wait and see and take it from there.

In the meantime I have been looking into putting some protective coating over some of the panels ready for when they are rivetted onto the chassis. The plan at the moment is to use 3M ventureshield on any areas that will see a lot of wear and tear to save the powder coat. This is mainly the wheel arch panels and sills which will no doubt get scratched up either by stone chips or while getting in and out of the car.

I am planning on having my sills with beading ribs on them and then no carpet etc on top of the sills (like the original race cars). Rather than sticking the ribs directly onto my nice powder coated sills what do you think about fitting a layer of ventureshield to the sills first and then layering on the beads on top of the ventureshield?

This way if I ever decide to remove the beading I can simply remove the ventureshield from the sill and the 3 ribs will come away with the ventureshield.

What do you guys think?

Trev

 

[Bill Cooke]

Trevor,
I'd clean and touch up any problem areas on the chassis and continue your build. It's better than 99.9% as it is. You can't keep it new forever if you plan to drive it. I say let it age as it will with use, even the most beautiful woman in the world age with grace. Other wise, build it,keep it in a garage with wall to wall carpet and never drive it. I did not think you were building a garage queen. If I've got it wrong I'm sorry and will eat my words.
Bill

 

[Brett James-McCall]

Trevor, I'd have stuck the beads on prior to powdercoat. Seeing you attention to detail, you might want to offer the beads up to see if you get any gaps, as you are trying to replicate reading in metal. Other option could be to buy a bead roller.

I paint my panels, as I am not as careful as you; on the inside I'll be carpeting to hide my indiscretions...

 

[Andy Green]

Trevor,
if your going to all this effort, why not do it properly and ribs rolled into the panel? Its not difficult and any good fabricator will have this facility. My local guy did these sill tops for me (£40 if I recall including the material).

Regards
Andy

 

[TrevS]

a little bit of work done today. Still waiting for the chassis to go off to the coaters so thought I'd try and patch up the gap in the floor in between my lowered seating areas have been welded in by Tornado.

I start making a cardboard template but quickly realised that the 2 rails that the panel will sit on are very narrow and the head of my rivet gun is too big to be able to rivet along the rails.

Any suggestions on another way of patching over this area?

Trev

 

[Jon Briggs]

You could just glue it place with something like sikaflex. A lot of cars are held together with the stuff.

 

[TrevS]

I can probably get 2 or 3 rivets in at the top and bottom of the section along the wider chassis rails and then use glue/sealant along the centre narrow rails

Do you think this would hold ok?

Trev

 

[Andy Green]

Hi Trev,
I'd grind down the head of your rivet gun
Regards
Andy

 

[Jon Briggs]

Trev, I think what you have drawn will hold it very well. There should be no pressure on it.
However, as Andy has said, you could grind the head down on the riveter. They are quite cheap to replace.

 

[Seymour Snerd]

....the head of my rivet gun is too big to be able to rivet along the rails.

If it will leave the gun with enough purchase on the rivet mandrel, perhaps you could extend the nose of the rivet gun with a short piece of metal tubing, ID =~ mandrel diameter, OD =~ rivet head diameter. Or a combination of that and grinding the nose of the gun.

 

[Ian Bissett]

Trev,
You could use self tapping screws too.
Ian

 

[Mike Huddart]

Trevor,
not sure how deep the obstruction is to your rivet gun but I have got 'round similar situations by stacking small nuts (3/16 or similar ) over the rivet shaft. You can use as many as you need so long as the gun grips the shaft. Worked for me !
Mike.

 

[TrevS]

The seating area means that I'd need to find another 3cm's or so in height to clear it. I like the idea of using something like a stack of nuts but would this ensure the rivets are set properly?

I don't mind grinding the nose of the gun down. There seems to be enough metal casing around the nose that I can get rid of to make it fit if that's the easiest option?

Trev

 

[TrevS]

Made the additional piece of floor aluminium floor tonight which looks much better. I also spent some time grinding down the nose of the rivet gun. I am very pleased with the result, gun works like normal but can now get into the gap to fit the rivets along the narrow rails.

Thanks for the tip guys

Trev

 

[Jack]

Nice job Trev! Looking good.

 

[Bill Cooke]

Trev, glad to see your back at it. I hope your feeling better about the build. Have you any more thoughts about your chassis problem and your fit for it yet?
As the Grateful Dead say, Keep truckin'.
Bill

 

[TrevS]

Trev, glad to see your back at it. I hope your feeling better about the build. Have you any more thoughts about your chassis problem and your fit for it yet?
As the Grateful Dead say, Keep truckin'.
Bill

Plan at the moment it to get this floor piece drilled and cleco'd. Then to remove it and get the chassis off to the coaters with the front floor section in situ. Andy is confident that the sealant won't reach any kind of melting point so will stay in place and the coaters said they will do the best job they can to make up for the original mistake.

Hopefully the chassis should be sent in the next week and will take a few days to recoat. Once it's back I am then going to rivet in the wheel arches, new floor section and rear bulkhead and start fitting the cooling pipes that arrived at the end of last week.

I have to admit spending a couple of hours yesterday on the car did feel good, it's nice to see the build going in the right direction again.

Trev

 

[TrevS]

Finally the extra floor piece is drilled onto the chassis. Initially this looked like a pretty straight forward job but the bars along which the new panel had to be drilled into proved to be a real pain in the backside.

However a couple of nights work and 5 drill bits later all the holes are drilled and the chassis is now ready to be sent back to the coaters to be redone.

Time for a beer

Trev