Davecymru's Build thread

[davecymru]

Seeing as we've now got our own Sammio area (whoo hoo) i thought i'd add a build thread for my Sammio Spyder

The story so-far......


I bought a Triumph Herald 13/60 that had had 000's spent on it in the early 80's upgrading it to full 2L Vitesse MKII spec, as the receipts and engineers report proves.

The body had had it's day, but the chassis, suspension, running gear and engine all seemed good, as suitably demonstrated by No.1 son:



Closer inspection shows that it wasn't exactly mint and that some work would be needed. i.e. there was no throttle pedal!! something i'd overlooked on viewing the car, but you sort of assume it's there! Also the engine would need a bit of fettling to get it working again:

[davecymru]

Body came off with a bit of persuasion and use of a big rubber hammer (a tool that has come into it's own so far!) and compared to the fairly good state of the chassis i think that i actually put the body out of it's misery!



Chassis has a bit of surface rust but nothing serious, which was good news and meant i could break out the Jennolite and Hammerite rather than the welder:



Was getting all excited by now and i pulled a long "garage session" and did the initial bulkhead trim (i know, it's also trimmed in the pic 2 above, but i forgot to take a pic at that stage!) :

[davecymru]

At this point Gary rang and told me that the body was ready 2 weeks early!! (ordered at Stoneleigh, donor bought 1 week after that) so after i finished panicking that i wasn't ready, i ordered a long wheelbase transit and set off on the road-trip to pick it all up.

Body safely home on my drive, after a nerve-racking drive home with lots of creaking and groaning from the back of the van:





I went for the premium frame as i'd had enough of welding on my previous project and i just wanted to get on with building:

[davecymru]

Frame required a bit of fettling, but nothing i wasn't expecting or able to deal with.
Picked up a Spitfire Mk4 petrol tank and it went on as soon as the frame was on and the paint dried. I also ran some new brake and fuel lines the entire length of the car while the body was off (as if i didn't have enough to do!) Sine this pic was taken i've re-routed the fuel line to take it off the rear outrigger:



For the handbrake i went with a Morris minor one as it looked easy to fit and only required a small amount of fabrication to fit. Plus i quite like the look of it

You can also see in this pic the seat belts i've fitted that i had left over from a Mk2 Toyota MR2, they needed a small sub-frame fabricating and fitting to the body frame, but they went on nicely and i'm going for the look that i've seen on a few Cobras as that seems to fit the look i'm after.



Another angle of the seat belt sub-frame and how i've fitted them:



It's also worth adding that i've fitted the belts and mounting points to comply with the IVA regulations on seat belts, as even though i don't need to put the car through an IVA i've never fitted seat belts from scratch before and i wanted to make sure that i was doing things 'properly' and safely.

[davecymru]

Sorted out the wiring loom to the rear and removed some of the 42 years worth of after-market "improvements"



I'm 6ft 2" so i've gone for seats that fit me and i'll alter the car around those!
I've ended up with Black cobra bucket seats from Moss in Bristol. My sons seem to approve!



As you can see on the last pic, the seats are quite high so i decided to bite the bullet and fabricate lowered seat pans:



Made from 1.2mm steel with a 3mm steel H-style sub frame welded in for strength and rigidity, then seam sealed & painted with Chassis Black and bolted AND bonded to the floor (with large load spreader plates) all along front and rear edges and screwed in down the sides just to be doubly sure.

[davecymru]

While the welder was out i fabricated a lowered battery box from some left over 1mm steel and welded it in place:



Then the last thing left before the body went on was lowering the back end. I opted for a Swing spring conversion and a 1" lowering block both bought from Canley Classics (nice people!) that ended up with the rear wheels sitting nicely just where i wanted them!
Old spring off:



Swing spring and lowering block fitted:

[davecymru]

Then the body went on!!

Was glassed in place along both sides and also along the front edges. Even though i'd bonded those with Tiger Seal i saw no harm in this to give extra strength. Note the large strap holding everything in place at the right angles. The guys from Sammio said one, i found that one large one in the middle and one smaller one around the front edge of the shell worked best for me. But each to their own:



Bubble wrap the steering column if you plan to do any work 'in' the car. Trust me on this one!



Trial fitting the side panels, note the start of the mods for the seat belts. That was enlarged as you'll see in later pics. You'll also notice that i'm fitting the panels "inside" the top lip of the body tub. This is due to the size of the seats i'm using and the seat belts. Lots of trial fitting of belts and seats was done before i came to this conclusion and it seems to work well!

[davecymru]

Then I started bonding! Bonding paste has come as somewhat of a revelation to me, it's wonderful stuff and while it does take about an entire day to fully dry it really does stick like the preverbal mucky brown stuff to a blanket! you can see how the seat belt cutouts ended up, backed with some body filler mesh and coated in bonding paste it all works and looks lovely:



Front edges bonded and glassed in place so that i could finally remove the straps:



Other side got glassed and then bonded, will be sanded and painted to look like part of bulkhead:

[davecymru]

Centre tunnel in and bonded. Seat belts and other bits covered in kidddies lunch bags (i used what i had to hand!) to keep the dust and muck off:



Trial fit of gater. i'm not sure....



Had to lower the section around the top seat belt mounts so that everything moved nicely, so i cut it out and replaced it with a bit of the left over dashboard! Bonding paste currently drying but i think it looks ok:

[davecymru]

Drivers seat and steering wheel were balanced in place so that i could figure out where i wanted the instruments and switches. It also contributed to the curves of the dash so that i could fit my legs under, both driving and as a passenger:



Slight issue, the body frame is too close to the main two instruments to allow them to sit flush, so after a bit of frantic googling i stumbled across a possible design solution. I'm not going to use this, but rather make my own version of this 'style' of covers for the main two instruments:



After a lot of fettling and angling and re-angling, everything was taped in place, covered and fiber glass and bonding paste applied. Fingers crossed that it turns out as good as i hope! You can't really see the angle from this photo, they just look raised. That's just an optical illusion of this photo, they're both quite heavily angled towards the driver.

[davecymru]

And finally to bring us right up to date, while things were drying No.1 son helped me put the bonnet in place just for some motivation and to see what it'll look like!




And a final thought for other builders that may save you enduring some of the bruises and cuts i initially inflicted on myself:





So that's it, that's where i am today.

Dave

[Sammio Builder]

Hi Dave,

Great build photos, I will take quite a lot of inspiration from them!

What is the make or brand of bonding paste you're using, and where do you get your fibreglass matting and resin from?

Trev.
http://www.sammiospyder.blogspot.com/

[lancelot link]

Excellent stuff Dave - well done.

Won't be long before we see the car in the flesh looking at those pics ....

We can get that car inspected anytime now , as long as body is secured , we can do it....

No Inspections locally until week beginning 11th though ....

[Roadster]

looks good - i forgot how drastic it looks when your down to a bare chassis.
It makes me feel better about mine. I feel my own build thread starting.

Have you started to dream of what colour to paint her and adding the detail parts?

[mulberry]

roadster mine was in a bare matel state of drastic confusion for short period, but then all the paint was applied and bits starting to fit back on,then you get your second wind,and wish the body was on like dave`s..

[davecymru]

The only parts i am now waiting on are 4" of fuel filler hose and a new fibreglass gearbox tunnel, then that's it apart from the paint!
I already have all of the other parts i need thanks to a bit of guidance from Gary at Stoneleigh meaning that i went on a bit of a spending spree for lots of Chrome and wood!

Initially it's going to be quite sparse internally with just a padded top being added to the tunnel for comfort. I'm not even sure if i'm going to vinyl wrap the interior straight away or just drive it all plain painted for this summer just so that i can get it on the road. Then i'll modify it during the winter with extra padding / posher dashboard / heater / possibly a wireless. I'll just see how it goes

As for the colour..... i'm down to a choice between Alfa Romeo Red and Jaguar Metallic Gunmetal!

But as I'm going to paint this myself i suspect that i'll go with Red, but i've got a week or two to go until i get that far so there's time for some more reading yet

[davecymru]

No photos yet, but the two rear wheelarches have now been boxed in with 9mm ply and glassed and bonded to the bodyshell.

Now for the sanding to begin ahead of getting it down to VOSA either next week or the week after!

[Sammio Builder]

Would love to see pics of that area if you do get the chance another day.

These Spyders do allow a really fast progress if you're prepared to put the hours in don't they!

Trevor

[davecymru]

Rear wheel arches now boxed in and underbody painted, although there's still some tidying up to do on the non-road side of them.

Now on to the sanding, and filling, and sanding, and filling and sanding.......

The angled instrument pod is now done although i still can't get a photo that shows it off very well so this will have to do for now:



And from the back it's really starting to look good, if only Europa would hurry up and send me my Fuel filler pipe i would get the filler cap on as well!



Now i'm just going to give it one more sanding and then i think that it's time to clean it all off and start wiring everything in and try and fire up the engine so that i can drive it onto the trailer for the VOSA inspection next week!

[Roadster]

Almost there - its looking great
I look forward to seeing it at a meet sometime soon