Undersealing

Next big job to tackle was the under sealing . It is important with GRP cars that under seal is applied to reduce the risk of star crazing, caused by stones flying off the wheels and hitting the underside of the wings. I used IsoFlex (bought from screwfix as it was the cheapest when I looked), as others had used this product. - it goes everywhere! It has the consistency of black tar and has to be applied 12 to 24 hours apart .
So 3 days spoken for two coats on the underside and three coats on the wings as others had done .
first mistake painted from the tin so by the end of the first day the "tar" was that thick it was unusable.



Undersealed front wing with the "frog" masking tape still in place .

Second day and another tin later poored into a take away dish much better enlisted help of (un)willing son.
If I hadn't made the first mistake I would have got away with using 1 tin,  lesson learnt.
At least its done now.


and it just started to rain !!

All done now finally




 

Doors

Tackled the door hinges today wanted to make sure that they fitted before I painted them ,they didn't .
had to remove the top corner off the hinges to give me enough adjustment to get the two easiest screws in (the top one looks a challenge) .
GD manual says that the hinges can be fed in from the inside of the car after assembly .mine didn't so had to put the locking pins in after (long nose pliers and trusty adhesive tape to the rescue.
The hinge holes were already cut out by GD but still needed a bit of "fettling"

Hinge from inside the car (note the top hole in the gods)

 

Once I had the hinges swinging then fitted the rest of the door metalwork so i knew were it went ,the was a bag of bolts in the pack and its a bit of a guess what goes were only time will tell

Door metalwork fitted

 



 

once happy marked all the bits using saw cuts 1 for left and 2 for right marking the top of the top hinge and bottom of bottom hinge (pinched this idea from Dale !)

and then painted them with Hammerite

Needs to dry before the wife walks into it

 

 



Rear wiring loom

After reading the GD manual it recommends doing the rear loom first Andy was kind enough to point out to drill the hole at the bottom near side of the boot .I did this and then opened the hole out to accommodate all the wires .
The loom has to be fed from the cockpit . I was lucky as I could spring the top part of the mould with a wooden wedge to allow the cables to go in without having to drill a second hole

Hole from the boot

Cable coming down from the cockpit

Footwell extender

Decided to cut out the foot well piece  today to give me more room for my size 11
marked out the cover from the outside and then cut 2 inches inside that mark so I didn't cut into the wheel arch space .
one I could see in the hole I cold open I up to the pattern .


foot well cut

I have left the hole 1 inch to short because I originally wanted the bottom of the hole to be level with the floor but this would mean the top of my shoe would not slide in the hole

foot well viewed from the engine bay

 

Heater

Thought I would tackle the heater fitting as my first job  .After reading Dale's blog realised that the "wings" need to be cut off .angle grinder made short work of those .
Problem then is nothing to fasten the heater with .
Again Dale's blog sourced the answer 4 6mm Rivnuts . Note heater internals need to be removed before drilling to stop the drill going into the matrix




Heater shown with the wings off and the 4 rivnuts 

Heater fitted but then realised that there was no space for the pipes to connect up so first mistake
refitted after elongating the heater outlet holes and drilling new securing holes
good job its covered by the dash

heater from the passenger side showing the extent of my error



Body arriving

Momentous day to day as the body is carefully lifted out of the box van and onto the trestles cant wait to get started.

lucky the trestles were so high Thanks Mark C  for these .
Big thank you to all  my helpers Bob ,Steve, Adam and Connor . 

 



Found a picture of the first time I saw the body so thought I would put it on here

first time we met !!!



My inspiration

On my way to choosing the way my GD would look, I saw the Gardner Douglas demonstrator and took a ride in Larry's car. I liked the black of both cars, so that is what I chose. Black, no bonnet scoop and a Euro chassis. The finished car will have an LS3 6.2 litre engine producing around 430 bhp and 425 ft lb torque.

GD demonstrator (this has bonnet scoop, mine will not)