Scratch built GT40 finally running
Discussion
A few little jobs over the past three weeks to get everything on the car up to scratch… i.e. install longer rear springs so that I could bring the rear ride height up a tad to cope with roads that may not be billiard table smooth, change out the plug leads for better quality ones to eliminate errant discharges, make a new rubber gasket for the 50 year old windscreen washer pump, have a little paint blemish repaired, re-route a cooling hose, fix a sticking fuel level sender, and make and install screens for the Weber intake trumpets.
Now she is all cleaned, polished, and ready to set out on Wednesday for the most epic journey yet - almost 2000 km over some of the best driving roads in New Zealand.
Day 1: To Christchurch to pick up my brother.
Day 2: Meet with more than 50 like-minded car enthusiasts, each with their own interesting car, and drive to Franz Josef, via Arthurs Pass. Rain is forecast for the West Coast, so things in the GT40 might get a little damp (they were never designed to be water-tight).
Day 3: Drive to Wanaka via Haast Pass.
Day 4: Mooch around the Queenstown Lakes district, including some laps of Highlands, a trip to Glenorchy, and a drive over the Crown Range to return to Wanaka.
Day 5: The crew will head from Wanaka back to Christchurch, via Mt Cook Village, Tekapo and Fairlie. However, I will leave them at Geraldine to head back south.
Just another gratuitous pic, simply because it is clean.
Now she is all cleaned, polished, and ready to set out on Wednesday for the most epic journey yet - almost 2000 km over some of the best driving roads in New Zealand.
Day 1: To Christchurch to pick up my brother.
Day 2: Meet with more than 50 like-minded car enthusiasts, each with their own interesting car, and drive to Franz Josef, via Arthurs Pass. Rain is forecast for the West Coast, so things in the GT40 might get a little damp (they were never designed to be water-tight).
Day 3: Drive to Wanaka via Haast Pass.
Day 4: Mooch around the Queenstown Lakes district, including some laps of Highlands, a trip to Glenorchy, and a drive over the Crown Range to return to Wanaka.
Day 5: The crew will head from Wanaka back to Christchurch, via Mt Cook Village, Tekapo and Fairlie. However, I will leave them at Geraldine to head back south.
Just another gratuitous pic, simply because it is clean.
1862 kms (1157 miles) covered and around 300 litres of fuel guzzled, but a fantastic time.
A tad damp at Arthur's Pass.
Letting some of the water out...
Some of my travelling companions.
Perfect roads for cars like these. This is the Lindis Pass.
The 40 getting its fair share of attention at Mt Cook.
A great spot to end the tour.
A tad damp at Arthur's Pass.
Letting some of the water out...
Some of my travelling companions.
Perfect roads for cars like these. This is the Lindis Pass.
The 40 getting its fair share of attention at Mt Cook.
A great spot to end the tour.
tapkaJohnD said:
CR6ZZ,
Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery nice!
Mine is a long short of completion, but then you took a while building yours!
Help me with advice on sourcing headlamps, please? What did you use? Looks like you fabicated mounts for them so they were adjustable?
John (in UK)
Thank you. To be perfectly original you should look for Marchal or Cibie units, which crop up occasionally on eBay. However, mine are NOS Ford Escort (Lucas) units which are the same dimensions. Other alternatives are Hillman Hunter or Vauxhall Viva (although the Viva ones have a deeper lens) and Renault 12 or 16.Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery nice!
Mine is a long short of completion, but then you took a while building yours!
Help me with advice on sourcing headlamps, please? What did you use? Looks like you fabicated mounts for them so they were adjustable?
John (in UK)
The mounting plates came from Cushman Competition. (https://cushmancompetition.com/GT40.htm). I then made a simple adjustment mechanism using stainless cap-screws with springs and wing nuts and a nylock to hold the end result. A little fiddly, but works well (I have not had to re-adjust them since setting them up). Should add that a custom made aluminium plate fits between the headlight unit and the mounting plate.
Edited by antipodes40 on Friday 1st January 20:36
First decent run since well before Christmas (a British Car Day Cruise).
A couple of issue have arisen since the big road trip (see above).
1) Radiator top tank seams had started to weep. Took it out, got both top and bottom tanks removed and re-tinned, then soldered back together. Seems to have fixed the problem.
2) The water issue with the fans arising from the drenching on the above road trip appears to have caused the EWP/Fan controller to malfunction, resulting in theEWP/Fans running full-bore almost continuously. This drains the battery in short order. Have ordered a new controller which I will install as soon as it arrives. Hopefully that will fix the issue.
Anyway, apart from the battery drain problem the car was well received at the cruise and took away peoples choice. I voted for the rather lovely little Elan.
A couple of issue have arisen since the big road trip (see above).
1) Radiator top tank seams had started to weep. Took it out, got both top and bottom tanks removed and re-tinned, then soldered back together. Seems to have fixed the problem.
2) The water issue with the fans arising from the drenching on the above road trip appears to have caused the EWP/Fan controller to malfunction, resulting in theEWP/Fans running full-bore almost continuously. This drains the battery in short order. Have ordered a new controller which I will install as soon as it arrives. Hopefully that will fix the issue.
Anyway, apart from the battery drain problem the car was well received at the cruise and took away peoples choice. I voted for the rather lovely little Elan.
The issues mentioned above appear to have all been sorted. Radiator not leaking and battery losing charge was down to a faulty stator connection in the alternator.
So, took the car down to Invercargill to meet up with members of the New Zealand Cobra Club at Teretonga Race Circuit. They were part-way through a South Island wide tour and had some lovely cars along, including this wonderful 289 FIA. Took one of their crew on the parade laps and fear I may have converted her.
So, took the car down to Invercargill to meet up with members of the New Zealand Cobra Club at Teretonga Race Circuit. They were part-way through a South Island wide tour and had some lovely cars along, including this wonderful 289 FIA. Took one of their crew on the parade laps and fear I may have converted her.
antipodes40 said:
A few little jobs over the past three weeks to get everything on the car up to scratch… i.e. install longer rear springs so that I could bring the rear ride height up a tad to cope with roads that may not be billiard table smooth, change out the plug leads for better quality ones to eliminate errant discharges, make a new rubber gasket for the 50 year old windscreen washer pump, have a little paint blemish repaired, re-route a cooling hose, fix a sticking fuel level sender, and make and install screens for the Weber intake trumpets.
Now she is all cleaned, polished, and ready to set out on Wednesday for the most epic journey yet - almost 2000 km over some of the best driving roads in New Zealand.
Day 1: To Christchurch to pick up my brother.
Day 2: Meet with more than 50 like-minded car enthusiasts, each with their own interesting car, and drive to Franz Josef, via Arthurs Pass. Rain is forecast for the West Coast, so things in the GT40 might get a little damp (they were never designed to be water-tight).
Day 3: Drive to Wanaka via Haast Pass.
Day 4: Mooch around the Queenstown Lakes district, including some laps of Highlands, a trip to Glenorchy, and a drive over the Crown Range to return to Wanaka.
Day 5: The crew will head from Wanaka back to Christchurch, via Mt Cook Village, Tekapo and Fairlie. However, I will leave them at Geraldine to head back south.
Just another gratuitous pic, simply because it is clean.
Absolutely magnificent build and read, then this road trip has made me miss my time living on the south island. I did a very similar trip but in a far less interesting car (Land Cruiser with just over 800,000kms on it, from Kaikoura-Christchurch-Dunedin-Invercargil-QT-Franz Josef-Christchurch.Now she is all cleaned, polished, and ready to set out on Wednesday for the most epic journey yet - almost 2000 km over some of the best driving roads in New Zealand.
Day 1: To Christchurch to pick up my brother.
Day 2: Meet with more than 50 like-minded car enthusiasts, each with their own interesting car, and drive to Franz Josef, via Arthurs Pass. Rain is forecast for the West Coast, so things in the GT40 might get a little damp (they were never designed to be water-tight).
Day 3: Drive to Wanaka via Haast Pass.
Day 4: Mooch around the Queenstown Lakes district, including some laps of Highlands, a trip to Glenorchy, and a drive over the Crown Range to return to Wanaka.
Day 5: The crew will head from Wanaka back to Christchurch, via Mt Cook Village, Tekapo and Fairlie. However, I will leave them at Geraldine to head back south.
Just another gratuitous pic, simply because it is clean.
My new employer is based in NZ so perhaps I'll be able to find an excuse to come back over and revisit some of these breathtaking views.
That build is truly epic.
It must be so satisfying to drive on those road trips, to have created something so 'beautiful' in an automotive sense.
My only comparison would be that my late Uncle restored 'from scratch' a 1970 Lotus Elan S4SE DHC, which he then gifted to me as he had nowhere to keep it after a house move.... I 'looked after' that car for over 12 years, did quite a bit of non technical work on it ( solid drive shaft conversion etc, roll cage etc etc) and was lucky to have a good pal who is a historic race mechanic so he did all the tech stuff ( shimmed the valves etc).
I took that Elan on an epic road trip to Switzerland to accompany said pal who was taking part in an historic hill climb event. (And that after we took the engine out 6 weeks prior !)
But for you to do that road trip in your creation must be way above what I did !!
I do recall that I foolishly installed a cassette player in my Elan for the above European trip...my pal said i was wasting my energy as I would not be able to hear it on the Autoroutes....and of course he was right...!!! Anything above 70 mph and the engine noise was too loud...!!! Those Elans were never designed for motorways...!!!
But your GT40 was designed for Le Mans and the Mulsanne Straight when it was unfettered by chicanes...so I guess it is quite long geared ?
But I would imagine that you would maybe require ear protection ? Or not....!!!
Anyway, what a fantastic thread and what an amazing car you have there !
Great to see you are using it 'properly' as well !
It must be so satisfying to drive on those road trips, to have created something so 'beautiful' in an automotive sense.
My only comparison would be that my late Uncle restored 'from scratch' a 1970 Lotus Elan S4SE DHC, which he then gifted to me as he had nowhere to keep it after a house move.... I 'looked after' that car for over 12 years, did quite a bit of non technical work on it ( solid drive shaft conversion etc, roll cage etc etc) and was lucky to have a good pal who is a historic race mechanic so he did all the tech stuff ( shimmed the valves etc).
I took that Elan on an epic road trip to Switzerland to accompany said pal who was taking part in an historic hill climb event. (And that after we took the engine out 6 weeks prior !)
But for you to do that road trip in your creation must be way above what I did !!
I do recall that I foolishly installed a cassette player in my Elan for the above European trip...my pal said i was wasting my energy as I would not be able to hear it on the Autoroutes....and of course he was right...!!! Anything above 70 mph and the engine noise was too loud...!!! Those Elans were never designed for motorways...!!!
But your GT40 was designed for Le Mans and the Mulsanne Straight when it was unfettered by chicanes...so I guess it is quite long geared ?
But I would imagine that you would maybe require ear protection ? Or not....!!!
Anyway, what a fantastic thread and what an amazing car you have there !
Great to see you are using it 'properly' as well !
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