#47 Spyder
 

Hi to you all,

I'm Michiel, I'm in Holland and I'm building a Sammio Spyder. In fact, I'm doing this for quite a while now (2,5 years). I'm #47 (just before Trevor). At the moment I have a roling chassis, and I'm in the progress of attaching the body to it.
With my postings I will get back in time, and catch up with my current build eventually.

Basically, the goal is to build a period car which doesn't remind of a kitcar or donor car in any way. The other goal is to make the car durable.

I enjoy this forum very much, and thought I should join and share some of my experiences. There are quite a few things I have done differently, or plan to do different. I suppose these are the most intresting things, because so much has allready been said on this forum.
And yes, I understand the picture thing. Give me some time to get the hang of it though.


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looks good already :thumb:

and you have got the hang of adding pictures :eusa_dance:

so don't leave it another 2.5 years for next update! :ranger: :icon_mrgreen:

Welcome to the forum Michiel. Looking very slick so far, can't wait to see some of your fresh ideas.

Does your workshop have a low ceiling, or are you actually 2.5 metres tall?

hi michiel welcome just starting my build all good fun dave r france

welcome to the madhouse! some pics of your current progress would make interesting viewing, were keen on photos on here :-)

christinedmc - Hi Michiel and welcome.

The more photos the better and you know we like to borrow / steal any good ideas / modifications you have. :icon_wink:

Good luck, Paul. :)

You are both right! (Allthough a haircut would take away half a metre!)
I tackled the garage thing the past months rebuilding it. And I'm working on the Spyder to accomodate myself comfortably. But that is not where my story started. Early 2011 I got in touch with gary, explaining my wish for a longer tail for the Spyder body. I thought the "bobtail" suits the German style front perfectly. But with the D24 nose, the Spyder took another way in design. It was my personal opinion that the car could use a longer tail to give it more balance.
I did some creative sketching to make myself clear to gary.
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http://<a href="http://s1330.photobu...ps7d9bd621.jpg[/IMG]

Gary and Mike went to work with it, and I got this picture from them, showing the progress. You can see their approach. And maybe you have seen the result before, because my picture of the body stacked to a white Vitesse donor on a trailer, is above the getting starting page of the Sammio website.
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The standard frame was altered aswell. Because of the longer tail, the rear of the donor chassis, didn't need to be shortened. In fact, the rear outriggers could be used to accomodate some luggageroom.
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I'm very pleased with the result, but the job could have been executed beter because the left side is now a massive 8 cm more to the ground as the right side.

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But no worries, I will get into that later on. For now, this is the result seen from the side. I hope to shape it a little more to get some lumbness out of it, to get is just a little more sleek.

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Welcome - Good to see another builder on here - looking forward to seeing more as you progress your build.

- I see you've also got a special 'handcrafted' body! Good luck with sorting that out.

This one?

http://www.sammio.co.uk/images/P1050105.jpg

yes, that's my package. Underneath is this beautiful preserved Vitesse. Lots of patina I would say!

That white Vitesse, it's not NNT695G, is it? Intrigued!

Good to hear of your build Michiel. It's not how long a build takes but the fun you have creating your car.

It's interesting you opted for the tail extension. Here's as good a place as any to ask readers whether they feel it would make sense to extend the Pilot body to cover the Herald boot supports as a permanent feature when we fix, dehump and remould that shell this winter? Having a boot option sounds useful to me and it would mean less parts 'dropping off' on the way home from rebody inspection.

Thank you all for welcoming me. I hope to keep this thread intresting with choices and solutions I have been made so far.

My donor car had a registration which started with AGP. So it's not the same. Fortunatly it had the more powerful MKII engine. But in general it was a real tard/lemon (or how do you call this in England?). However there was one shiny piece, which was the gearbox (+OD) that had just been replaced by a rebuild. I bought the car from Gary, which was very convieneant for me logisticly seen.
The state of the chassis was poor too, which led to a chassis restauration. I took a different angle there. I will look into my photo archive to explain.

I'm curious aswell about the opions on a longer tail. Well basically I'm curious how it turns out when the car is finished!

Welcome Michiel,

I look forward to seeing more of your car :biggrin:

wlcome michiel looking good looking forward to seeing more ..keep up the good work .phil

Hi all,
I have found pictures of some of the work I have done to my chassis. My Vitesse chassis had corrosion troubles. The siderails, ouriggers and rear cross member, suffered from it. Strangely enough the mains were very good however.

The problem offcourse is the rear cross member. I thought it could only be replaced. For that particular part restauration was no option any more.
A spitfire chassis is quite common, cheap and easy to buy. I found out that the rear of both of the chassis' is practically the same. The mains are different. Not only in length, but also in shape. But if you cut a chassis just in the right place, the rears are interchangable.
So I bought a spitfire chassis for about 50 pounds, which had a perfect rear cross member. I made a mould to make two exactly the same cuts. On my chassis and on the salvage rear. After that I lined them out with a laser and welded them together. I bought the outriggers at the rear new and welded them to the rear cross member.
I have lined out the car when it was on his wheels, and found no troubles at all.

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For the outriggers and siderails, I took another approach. In Holland we also need to keep the chassis original to keep the original registration. First I bought the outriggers and siderails new to replace them. But these parts were so terrible thin and flimsy, that I decided to do it differently. Basically I boxed in the old ones with 2 mm steel sheet. The result is a very strong structure that carries originality within, so no issues there. For the side rails I used a strong U-profile. They went just over the original side rails.
I ended up with a strong and rigid chassis, that is original underneath. After this it is important to rustproven it because of the potential hazard of the inner outriggers suffer from corrosion that would infect the boxed metal. Later more about that.

another objective of this solution was to acquire a flat chassis surface (underneath), with gives new options for the bottomstructure under the seats.

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Cheers, Michiel

Hi all,

Update. My alternative for the floors. I'm not too small, so I was a little concerned about the seating position. I also wanted to get the seats positioned as much to the middle of the car as possible (trying to get the hump in line with the middle of the seat).

After boxing the outriggers and ultimately having the chassis preserved and painted (chemacaly depainting, Hydrochloric acid bathing, zincphosphating, cathodic electrodeposition and powdercoating). I mounted 3mm aluminium plates on the underside of the chassis after I had them epoxy coated and given them a layer of underbody protection and black paint. I used strongbond to glue them in (extremely strong stuff) and added large stainless screws.

http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/...ps54f0c8eb.jpg

For the above I made some sills of the 3mm aluminium sheet. Took a lot of force bending them! The sides mounted to the siderails and the front over the middle outrigger, joining the footwell. I used stainless flat head bolts to connect the floors with the floor.

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After that the underside got a lot of bolt ends!

http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/...ps77db7b1e.jpg

I got the result that I wanted, a low and flat surface, The main rails of the chassis remain vissible in the interior when finished.

Michiel

Nice work i am sure this will do the job>:icon_razz:

Nice job on the floors. :cool:

3mm ! Ill bet that took some bending!

Very neat solution to the lowered floorpan issue. I found the limiting factor for moving the seats inboard is the chassis flaring out towards the back. What seats are you using?

I have bought two Kirkey seats (Vintage). Are they called bomber seats as well?

Because they are made of aluminium, you can make some alterations. I have deformed the right side of the driversseat (LHD!) a little, to gain some extra movement towards the middle of the car. This is as much as you can get to the centre of the car as possible, because these seats have practically no extra with, exept your own bottom.
I made my own seat rails. Again, of the 3 mm aluminium sheet that I have plenty of. I had to make up for the angle of the floor.

I bought 1 seat cover, bearing in mind that I will have two of them made from leather. I looked for a sofa that had the color of leather that I want (green). The sofa was beautifully worn. I hope to get nice seats. They also support the 4 point harnesses that I have.

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Michiel

I lijke them Michael, how did you come across them seats ??

Hi Mike,

These american seats are not to hard to find. I googled and got lots of leads.
It seemed that we have a kirkey dealer in the Netherlands. I'm not sure if they do the Netherlands, or Europe. I contacted them and had to tell them where I lived. They pointed out some car related businesses at about 30 km's away. The thing is: the seats come in different sizes. But what size is your ass? And do you have to take a sqeeced size (because I recon my but cheeks will be when I'm driving this thing :icon_biggrin: )
Anyway, they sent seats to them and I could fit them around my... well you get the picture. It was a good size match. So I bought them.

Michiel

Thanks mike,

They will look the part once fitted, keep up the good work

I wanted the biggest size wheels/tires as possible. Gary told me 165/80/15 should be the biggest size if you make some alterations. I think bigger wheels look great. But, there are limits because of the outrigger (chassis) and the bulkhead. I was also a bit concerned about the dynamics of the wheel. When breaking the wheel will move a liittle to the back. And in high speed the tire will expand a little. So there must be enough clearance. Getting a large hammer to do the trick, wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I took photo's on the way which tell how I did it. Because like you told me, we all like photo's!

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Wow, top job. I hope you have faith in your welding if that's your brake pedal...

That front bulkhead chas come up beautiful. Good work.

Your workis excellent, that's why we need photos. Soif you want big wheels, that's how you do it.

Hi all,

Here is an update on the changes I made to the steering column. I don't know the filosofy behind the Triumph Vitesse steering, but I don't like the design so much. The steering wheel is off centred to the driver seat and the face of the wheel has an angle towards the length axle of the car. Very strange if you aren't used to it. Besides that, I would like to have the steering wheel further to me.

First of all, I bought a 15" steering wheel with a small centre hole. Then a splined quick release steering hub. I had an additional aluminium hub beeing made that would fit between steering wheel and this quick release hub.
I got a combination of two U-Joints from a Corolla (I beleive). The rod between the two can slide so you can change the distance between the two. On top of one of the u-joint's I got a flattened rod that fitts the inner steering column tube. With the two possibilities to change distance and two U-joints, I can move the steering wheel whatever it suits me. I changed the frame around the steering wheel area. (also necessary for acompaning the instruments). I made a very strong bracket that would support the steering column. Some welding and an aluminium clamp that I also had beeing made. I re-used the the original clamp aswell. The two clamps have a very strong grip om the outer column tube. The rod that goes thru the the bulkhead had to be supported. A plate with a "nuckle-bearing" would do the trick. It all was a little more complicated then I anticipated, but it works very well. It feels rock solid and the position is perfect. I got the steering wheel, the seat and the hump, all in one line now.

Michiel

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Looks a very smart solution Michiel.

I think you may have put the steering wheel on the wrong side though :gossip: :becky:

Very neat and reassuringly over-engineered solution to something that was obviously bugging you. Well done, you're a true Sammio perfectionist!

Very nice job !:wave:

Hi all,

Using the swing spring seems to be a good way to improve the ride and it's a common modification.
I did two things that I haven't read about on this forum before (but I could have overlooked). Firstly when I overhauled a swing spring, I renewed all the nylon/plastic caps that are between the leafs as well (besides the bushes and the pivot). The leafs should be able to move on top eachother smoothly. Mostly the plastic caps are gone or worn. New caps changes the ride (smoother), and the ride hight a little.
Secondly I had to make a modification to the brake hose. Normally you can mount the brake hose directly to the cylinder. However, the swing spring has a much bigger end (where it is fixed to the vertical). This is in the way, drawing a straight line from the hose connection on the cylinder. There is a good chance that you will be able to get the hose on. Maybe even by jacking the car a bit to give some space. And maybe it's also related to the size of lowering block (I use 1"). But you have to realise that there will be wheel travel on the ride. The last thing you want is the hose connection braking when pushed aside (repeatedly) by the spring end. (It's a single cirquit braking system and you will loose every brake!). The spitfires using the swing spring do have a modification standard. Using the bigger rear drums of a Vitesse, you need to modify them yourselve.

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this is looking really tasty :-) i like how tidy everything is looking already

Ah ha! .... very interesting. :icon_cool: Looks like I will need some modification on my own Sammio. Thanks for that little nugget.
Slarti

Here's something about another way for placing the battery. My thoughts were: The battery is quite a heavy object and therefore must have a negative influence on the handeling of the car, when placed on a high position. So better not on top of the bulkhead. And if I'm adding a big lump of weight, don't pick the side that's allready much more heavy, bringing the car more out off balance. What if I can place the battery behind the seats? Maybe in a kind of cubby box?
And this is exactly what I did. Betweeen the fuel tank and the seats is enough room for some sort of cubby box. The difficulty was to make a construction that could be dismantled with the body fixed on top of the frame. With this feature I can dismantle the whole of the cubby box from the inside out, giving access to the fuel tank for example.


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There are a lot of very nice touches in your build. :cool:

Can I just check how you have sealed the "vent" pipe on the petrol tank?

Is that just a section of hose with a bolt in the end, clamped into place?

Cheers, Paul. :)

Hi Paul,

For venting I use a plastic plug with a small hole. 1 or 2 mm diameter or so. Can't remember. The plug is in the rubber hose you mentioned.

Michiel

Hi all,

This is a different way to do the electrics of a Spyder. My origial loom is 45 years old, isn't up to modern functions like a electric fan, suits a dynamo instead of an alternator, got some changes allong the way, and doesn't fit the the dash design of my Spyder. In short, it won't do the job.

I got myself a new electric platform from Car Builder Solutions. It has all the fuses and Relais for all the functions you need. It comes with some explaining and is in fact very easy to use.

[IMG]http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/...psa11431df.jpg[/IMG]

Then I bought a new wire loom. From a Triumph TR3a. I could get this one for a nice price. It has all the basics you need for the Spyder. Then I cut it to pieces.

[IMG]http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/...psa5282f95.jpg[/IMG]

I made myself a nice new Spyder loom, with all the right color markings, using the wires from the TR3a loom.

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Most of the work, and most of the wiring I used for a module I made myself. I really would like to have single red lightning at the rear. It means combining lightning, brake lights and indicator lightning in 1 dual fitment bulb.

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The wiring is all new then. I thought of an alternative way to make the wiring diagram. It turned out not to be that practical and I wouldn't advise it. But hey, it's better then nothing at all right?

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