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250 GTO Owners Thread


Duke

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Hi Chelle,

 

No not the same kit, the Automirage is a fantastic bit of kit, it is on a tubular chassis and uses late ish BMW running gear, it does however need an IVA. It is a very close replica of the real deal in body terms.

 

The ones that I done were made by a company called Tribute Automotive in Dorchester also based in Dorset,  as mentioned before a well thought out kit but they suffer with air blisters and dry matting under the gel coat, I had an early body so they may have improved things now.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Jeff H said:

Hi Chelle,

No not the same kit, the Automirage is a fantastic bit of kit, it is on a tubular chassis and uses late ish BMW running gear, it does however need an IVA. It is a very close replica of the real deal in body terms.

The ones that I done were made by a company called Tribute Automotive in Dorchester also based in Dorset,  as mentioned before a well thought out kit but they suffer with air blisters and dry matting under the gel coat, I had an early body so they may have improved things now.

 

 

 

Aww, cool, thanks for the insight.. I've been seriously considering the Automirage.. 

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I have managed to do a bit more on the car this week,

 

I try to keep Fridays for working on my own stuff and Sat mornings, if lucky I can snatch a couple of hours here and there during the rest of the week. I got the rear window frame glued, riveted and glassed in place, most of the old primer off and started the hateful job of getting the body shaped up.

 

Some pics for those interested (seems to be 2 at the moment lol) oh and a couple of pics were taken on myphone so quality not great.

 

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I have some more pics on my camera, but it is at work so will update later on in the week.

 

I have decided not to mod the doors, it does make the car look great but the work involved moving the A pillar back is a lot, plus if I did that I would have to do the sliding window mod and at the moment I have doors that open and shut well, should have no wind noise or leak.

 

I am also going to leave the fuel filler on the drivers side, again more for ease of the build plus I want to be able to use the boot space as much as possible.

 

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Great to see such rapid progress.

 

A couple of questions;

 

Did you reattach the the rear turret cross-member or did you recreate something new? A novel and seemingly practical approach either way to create a larger window opening.

 

You lost me a bit with the comment on the need to modify the 'A' pillar. Down here the 'A' pillar is the windscreen pillar and I don't understand any need to alter it?

 

Keep us posted.

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Hi Peter,

 

I probably didn't explain properly, what I meant was the A post where the hinges mount too, if I cut a bit off the leading edge of the door North to South and add a bit to the wing to make the difference up when you open the door it will foul the wing. The only way I could see out of it was to move the A post back the same amount as I cut off.

 

There would be no problem reducing the height of the door by removing material at the bottom and of course adding to the sill.

 

Regarding the roof mod, I dumped the old bit I cut off as it was quite heavy, I made a thin top hat section up and curved it to the roof profile, then I bonded it in place and made some L shaped brackets to attach it to the inner cant rail inside the car. I will get a pic tomorrow for you.

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On 2/6/2019 at 5:58 PM, chelle said:

Great progress!!  I too am changing the size and shape of the back window and doors. 

 

Thanks for sharing!!

Hi Michelle,

 

I think the door mod will really make the car along with your extended wheelbase it should look the nuts.

 

Regarding the door A post pivot point I did find this pic on the net and I don't think it would be a major faff to incorporate in to the car just not really sure how strong it would be as the doors with the over skins are quite heavy. 

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On 2/5/2019 at 12:50 AM, Jeff H said:

... if I cut a bit off the leading edge of the door North to South and add a bit to the wing to make the difference up when you open the door it will foul the wing. The only way I could see out of it was to move the A post back the same amount as I cut off...

 

Jeff, trimming the forward edge of the door will simply mean the edge moves in a more forward arc during opening. If the forward edge is extended, rather than cut, it will tend to rotate inward rather than forward. The edge should be forward of the axis of the hinge pin. 

 

Here is another rather straightforward mod you may want to consider.If you are trying to create the appearance of a longer front guard (wing, fender) try repositioning narrower vent slots rear-ward. I think it worked somewhat on mine.

 

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My doors were a major undertaking but as prototypes I expected that. It you want information on how I would go about it again let me know. Basically I purchased fibreglass doors and chopped 50mm off the top and 50mm above the crease in the panel, that was between the lower hinge mount position and the bottom edge of the door structure. I left them original at the 'A' pillar and kind of hide the change of height with the rearview mirror.

 

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I also made the outer skin removable (like newer VWs) so I can adjust it to match the front guard (wing, fender) and the rear panel.

 

Sorry for the rant.

 

 

Edited by Boy from Oz
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Well I did manage to get a little bit more done this week,

 

I have started shaping the body up, the rear quarters were not too bad just needed the original flash lines sorting out, the doors are quite bad they need a couple of skims to straighten them up I have a feeling it is where the skins were bonded on and maybe clamped in to position.

 

The bonnet will be used as  a plug to make a new one, as I mentioned it has been extended toward the scuttle/ screen and it is really very heavy for it.

I have just roller primed the bonnet for now, this will be blocked and the sprayed with high build, I am hoping to take the mould from a primed and then polished surface but I will see how well it turns out.

Pics.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I'd like to see if we can find those elusive GTORR newsletters!  Does anyone know who has them? I have a very good scanner, and I can easily scan them in color or B&W.

 

Does anyone at least know the date of the first newsletter?

 

thxZ

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/9/2019 at 7:07 PM, TomoHawk said:

I'd like to see if we can find those elusive GTORR newsletters!  Does anyone know who has them? I have a very good scanner, and I can easily scan them in color or B&W.

Does anyone at least know the date of the first newsletter?

thxZ

 

John has them, and thinks he might already have them scanned. I spoke to him yesterday and he said he'd look  :)

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I have managed to get a bit more done on my car,

 

The bonnet had been extended in to the scuttle by about four inches or so, the trouble was the previous owner had used steel to do it and with all the filler used it had made the thing really heavy.

 

The boot lid was also a mess so I decided to take moulds from them and produce better quality ones, my knowledge of mould making is limited but I do have a mate who makes GT40 bodies for a living who is local to me so I spent a few days with him to get a better understanding of what's involved.

 

This may be old hat to some of you so you can skip the next few photos if desired.

 

The 1st thing I had to do was get the bonnet and boot all painted up and nice n shiney, I had some old BRG left over from a repaint, it is solid 2K but does flat n polish to a good finish.

 

 

 

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Then I took the panels over to Lee's place as he has all the products required to do the job, gel coat was the next step, to keep costs low I asked Lee to use a colour that was not popular, he had some Oxford Blue left over from another job that had essentially already been paid for.

 

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