Mister Towed – Really good to see an update on your build. :cool:

As many others have said already, the new wheels will really suit the car.

It is funny seeing your bare rolling chassis, which is obviously very familiar to me.

Yet, moving your engine and using a completely different bodyshell will make your car unique.
(I am not aware of anyone else going down this road.)

Plus, it is great you are so fearless with the angle grinder, as the flip up bonnet will be special too.

Really looking forward to seeing this coming together.

Good luck, Paul. :)

PS
YouTube keeps suggesting 356 videos for me to watch, which always have a few nice details.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snw6saHzpwc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxUcIYXEVdo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCViz28jvGk

Towed, did you try swapping the front suspension towers side to side? This is a common mod amongst Triumph special builders, and places the lugs for the engine mounts behind the line of the front shocks/springs....

Good to see you still powering on with this!

Thanks for your interest, guys.

Great inspirational youtube clips, Paul - the first one is very much the look I'm going for with the front cooling vents and '550' feel inside and out.

Biggles, I did start by swapping over the suspension turrets which moves the engine mounts back too far, pushing the gearbox way back into the cockpit and leaving no clearance for the exhaust system. I would've needed to use a 4 into 1, Herald/early Spit/MG Midget manifold and narrow bore, modified down-pipe to clear the chassis rails, and I'd already got a 4-2-1-2 big-bore stainless system that I wanted to use.

As I only needed to move the engine back by two inches to get the front carburettor dash-pot under the bonnet, and I already had an overdrive prop on the shelf, which is 3" shorter than the Mk I-II-III prop that fitted my MkIII spec engine and gearbox, it seemed sensible to just move it back by 3"

That's put the engine fully within the wheelbase (so it's now technically mid-engined), given plenty of clearance for the front carburettor, (just) enough clearance for the exhaust system and left more space ahead of the engine to install the radiator and ducting to get the air from the MGF cooling vents through the rad without wasting any.

Anyway, I'll be getting on with this project again shortly so will post more pics when there's visible progress :)

How about an update with invisible progress?

:icon_wink:

Hi Paul, I suppose it has been a while since I posted an update.

Progress has been made, but mostly invisible. i have now fitted Gaz ride and height adjustable front shocks with new 170lb springs to get the front end height right and added camber shims to help the handling.

While I had the front suspension apart i also replaced the lower wishbones as when I trial assembled everything before I noticed that the trunnion holes were elongated on both sides through wear.

That's caused by the plain shank of the bolts being shorter than the gap they have to fill, which leaves the threaded portion of the bolts bearing against the inside of the trunnion hole at the nut end. That results in the bolt wearing down as the metal's thinner where it's threaded, and the movement that allows then wears the hole in the wishbone.

I had seen some longer bolts available to prevent this, I think from Jigsaw Racing, but they seem to have ceased trading recently.

Anyway, hoping for some nicer weather soon so I can get on with this project and post some nice pics in the sunshine...

you could try www.wolfitt.com he does long bolt sets.

Thanks for that, Keith, I'll get some ordered.

Some progress now made during 'lockdown' - I've cut all the pieces of the frame to size on one side and built the bridge across the chassis to link the two sides together -

https://i.ibb.co/QknBrJn/IMG-20200331-162739440.jpg

There's going to be a lot more space in the cockpit than the donor Spitfire, the white floorpans are splash moulded from the floor of my donor car and you can see how much wider the floor of the speedster will be (about a foot wider in total) -

https://i.ibb.co/M8QM634/IMG-20200331-163130011.jpg

My driveway and garage are getting a bit crowded now that my teenage son also has a car, so there's lots of juggling of cars and bits of donor going on whenever I need to get anything out of the garage -

https://i.ibb.co/4FrmXVZ/IMG-20200321-102435637.jpg

Should be more updates soon as I'm now in a position to get on with it for at least a few hours every day of the week.

Dammit, I'll come back later and resize the images.

There we go, 800x600 on imgbb is a reasonable size. They started out at over 4000 wide!

Mr T - Your framework looks very sturdy. :cool:

Another area where your past building experience is being put to good use.

I'm sure getting back into this now will help as the days get brighter/warmer.

Good luck, Paul. :)

One challenge when using a Spitfire as a donor is locating the rear suspension radius arms, and that's what I've been focusing on over the last few days.

The Herald/Vitesse chassis has a full perimeter frame consisting of front, centre and rear outriggers connected by side rails, and the radius arm brackets are bolted through the rear outriggers, giving them a solid location.

On the Spitfire, the chassis has stubby outriggers front and centre, but nothing at the back, and the radius arm brackets are bolted directly to the bodyshell just above floor level.

I've seen some imaginative approaches to locating these vital suspension components on various kitcars, including at least one that used modified radius arms that extended all the way to the centre outrigger stubs, making them about three feet long.

I wanted something a bit more factory spec, so decided to pretty much copy the Herald/Vitesse setup -

https://i.ibb.co/p0ZWXPT/IMG-20200410-161530045.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/rbpCX1Q/IMG-20200410-161544823.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/Y2Fsryj/IMG-20200410-161558430.jpg

The sharp-eyed may have noticed that I haven't used rear radius brackets, but front wishbone brackets, and the reason for this is twofold:

The brackets that came in a box of parts with my donor turned out to be for a Rotoflex car, so are completely the wrong angle as they are mounted about six inches inboard of non-rotoflex brackets.

If I did have the correct brackets, the mounting studs are too short to go through the 50mm box-section that I'm using for my perimeter frame, so I'd have had to drill them out and replace them with longer studs anyway.

As I had a selection of front wishbone brackets 'on the shelf' and they have studs that are long enough (and are far more substantially built than the rear radius arm brackets) I decided to give them a go.

To get the necessary angle I fabricated some angled plinths (out of an old sofa frame I'd kept), and you can see these best in the first picture above, which is partially completed. The wishbone brackets are very slightly narrower than the radius arm brackets, so to get the bushes to fit I had to grind about 2mm off the metal tube inside the bushes.

In the other pictures you can see that I've welded steel plate across the top and bottom to seal the unit and add extra strength, and what you can't see is that the stud and extra bolt both run through 2mm wall tube welded between the plinths to prevent the box-section from being crushed when the nuts are tightened up.

All in all it's turning out to be a robust and quite elegant solution to the problem.

More later.

Nice work, Towed!

Thanks Peterux. The lower frame's now all tacked together and I've trial fitted the body - so far so good.

Next step is to reverse-engineer (bodge) front and rear upper frames to support the body, brace the lower frame and hang the fuel tank, handbrake compensator, steering column and possibly the pedals from.

Although I have a floor mounted pedal box in similar style to an original 356, I'm not sure I can make it fit as the master cylinders for the clutch and brakes (x2) stick out quite a long way forward. Initial placing of parts and head scratching suggest that the pedals will be uncomfortably close to the driver, leaving the 'Italian Ape' driving position of outstretched arms with legs bent into the foetal position with your knee joints either side of the wheel next to your hands.

That'll be familiar to anyone who's ever driven an Italian sports car or coupe, and I quite liked that driving position when I had a Fiat 128 3P Coupe back in the day. The trouble is, I was 21 then and quite a bit more slender and bendy then than i am now, so I have a set of Triumph pendulum pedals on standby just in case I can't fold myself in behind the wheel with the floor pedals in place.

More later with pictures...

Mr T - At least you know the benefit of fixing things like the pedals before the bodyshell is bonded on.

Good luck, Paul. :)

More progress to report as the rear frame is now taking shape nicely -

https://i.ibb.co/b7F4Rkd/IMG-20200417-174836680.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/sFD47WX/IMG-20200417-174709588.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/8NjsrPF/IMG-20200417-174645812.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/YTMH3DL/IMG-20200417-174503818.jpg

As you can see, there's plenty of space for the fuel tank, spare wheel and plenty of luggage.

The frame will also give me somewhere to hang the exhausts and nerf bars from -

https://i.ibb.co/ctyZ8SV/IMG-20200416-144604880.jpg

Some more progress to report -

Exhaust now routed so the (bike) silencers protrude from just under the rear valance just as all non Carerra Speedster exhausts do -

https://i.ibb.co/z2z1wmT/IMG-20200503-104236713.jpg

The dash that came with the car didn't do it for me - it had been hacked about by previous owners, the pod over the instruments wasn't deep enough to allow a 4" tacho to fit under it and I just prefer the look of the 550 Spyder dash - so I sourced a 550 dash to graft in to the 356 shell -

This is the best shot I have of the original 356 dash -

https://i.ibb.co/ctyZ8SV/IMG-20200416-144604880.jpg

Initial fitting -

https://i.ibb.co/4NgMB9F/IMG-20200503-104329544.jpg

As the 550 Spyder is about 5" narrower than the 356, my replacement dash needed a bit of 'Jigsaw' construction using bits of the old dash, plasticine, etc. to get it to the right width -

https://i.ibb.co/jhPTdRH/IMG-20200503-164621674.jpg

next job was a week of fill and sand, fill and sand, fill and bloody sand until it starts to look as if it was always there -

https://i.ibb.co/khSD3Mc/IMG-20200509-135745890.jpg

At the moment it's made out of ticky-tacky and is far too heavy, so the next stage is to finish it to a good standard, paint and polish it, then use it as a plug for a mould so I can make a unified and lighter replacement to bond in.

More later.

Mr T - Nice work on the dash. :cool:

Good luck with the mould / remaking new piece.

It might be the angle of the photo, but will you be able to remove/refit the spare wheel with the body shell on?

Good luck, Paul. :)

Hi Paul, yes, the spare's a snug fit but it can be dropped in and lifted out with relative ease. I did have to modify the rear frame somewhat though.

My new dash is still a work in progress but I've got to the stage of trial fitting the plug with the body and front end in place -

https://i.ibb.co/XZQjZpX/IMG-20200510-143747162.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/2tMR4Wt/IMG-20200510-143538895.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/MR77RzR/IMG-20200510-143355505.jpg

Some more filling and sanding is still needed but it's nearly there now.

looks really good to me!

Thanks Molleur, there are still a few imperfections that only showed up when the etch primer went on but I'm really pleased with the way it's turning out.

Dash plug has now had half a dozen coats of Iris blue -

https://i.ibb.co/XWWz21B/IMG-20200518-133237096-1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/v3D9c5d/IMG-20200518-133257306.jpg

Next step is to cut back and polish the paint once it's fully cured, then add flanges ready to take a mould from it.

Exciting stuff!

that looks really good!

Thank you. The colour is left over from my Midget restoration and does suit the shape of the dash, but I'll be sticking with silver for the finished article.

Speaking of sticking, there are a couple of tiny flies firmly attached to the dash - light blue is their favourite colour, in a sort of fatal attraction way for these two as they both landed on it while it was still tacky.

There are also a couple of sags where I put a bit too much paint on in one go. It's nothing that won't sand out, flies included, and it'll teach me not to open the garage doors until the paint's touch dry and not to move the gun too slowly.

I'll report more progress when it happens.

Try dealing with Florida love bugs when fiber-glassing.
It will make you crazy!

I hadn't heard of those before but Google suggests that they spend most of their lives in an airborne hedonistic shag-fest.

We're possibly genetically related as that's exactly how I spent my twenties. I still wouldn't want them walking on my fresh paint though, spiritual cousins or not.

Mr T - Dash plug looks good. :cool:

Looking forward to seeing how you build the mould & the end result.

Good luck, Paul. :)

Thanks Paul, should be more progress and pics over the weekend.

must be an age thing my dream car a Speedster I check ebay daily for one to pop up with my name on it. good luck with the build very jealous

Ha ha, not an age thing in my case, I've wanted one since I was nineteen.

I built my Spyder as a result of not being able to afford a 356 Speedster kit and the experience I gained from building it gave me the confidence to buy a neglected Speedster body shell and do the rest myself.

Will be updating again in a few days - for reasons I'll explain then my dash mould is taking longer to get right than expected.

lol that's what I meant sort of ,my first car @17 a VW beetle CRB618L I rebuilt it so many times and change the colour 4 times .it was my mums car she wrote it off in an accident and I put it back on the road after passing my test. always wanted a 356 porsche but could never afford a real one. been a DINK I can now make some of my childhood dreams come true :thumb:

My first (only) Beetle was SGP 345F back in '89. It was a 1500 Automatic (two pedals, manual change with electro-hydraulically actuated clutch and IRS instead of swing axles), which i converted to a proper manual and three pedal setup from a 1303S when the 1500 threw a rod through the crank-case and damaged the gearbox.

I kept the outside looking shabby and stock but uprated to a 1600 motor with 85hp and lowered it with dropped spindles at the front and a one-spline turn at the back.

It had enough go to put a smile on my face, but it always sounded like my dad's Suffolk Punch lawnmower right across the rev range. The handling also always demanded 'respect' (read fear). It wandered all over the road at anything over 55mph, the tail would try to overtake the nose at every opportunity and you needed at least three lanes clear to pass a truck on the motorway due to the wind blast blowing you across the carriageway.

My main reason for going down the Spitfire chassis route was the experience of trying, and failing to get that bug to handle. At least I know I can get this one to change direction without having to check the shipping forecast first.

Anyway, I've got a bonkers Outlaw Speedster to build so I'd better get on with it.

Time for an update on progress, I feel.

My dash mould is now almost ready to use. It should've been ready to use about a fortnight ago but I had a bit of a setback to sort out...

As you may recall, my dash plug was finished, painted and in the process of being given a dozen coats of release wax -

https://i.ibb.co/v3D9c5d/IMG-20200518-133257306.jpg

I then added flanges and laid up five or six pretty heavy layers of CSM reinforced in places that might flex. I've never made a split-mould before, so I included recommended features like wedges built into the dividing flange and applied a pva release agent (on top of the wax) on one 'half' of the buck to see if there was any difference in ease of release -

https://i.ibb.co/sP01yQp/IMG-20200525-125957965.jpg

After a suitable curing period I broke the buck out of the mould. This took a great deal of force, far more than I expected, and what a mess it revealed -

https://i.ibb.co/BTJVX5D/IMG-20200526-112537203.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/dLggBpg/IMG-20200526-112641715.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/QbcWh4X/IMG-20200526-112628329.jpg

Okay, so it appears that the gel-coat on the inside of the mould had reacted with something and caused a few issues. All of the gel-coat had tiny bubbles in it and it had stuck to the paint on the face of the dash where I had only used release wax, tearing the paint and high-build primer from the plug when I separated it from the mould. At least the paint didn't stick where I used the PVA release agent, so I'll definitely be using that again.

The gel-coat looked fine when I applied it, but it was a part-used tin that had been sitting in my garage for about 30 months, so I guess it had either gone off or maybe I didn't leave the paint to cure for long enough on the plug before glassing over it.

I thought about scrapping it and starting again, but decided to have a go at making it good with lots of filling and sanding, which I've got to say is much harder on the 'negative' impression of the dash rather than the actual dash itself -

https://i.ibb.co/PmJ8FpM/IMG-20200601-113627738.jpg

Anyway, after loads of effort and half a dozen coats of white cellulose it looks like this -

https://i.ibb.co/NKvNxRW/IMG-20200611-110122728.jpg

It's now sitting at the back of the garage for a week or so to allow the paint to fully cure and I have a nice, new tin of gel-coat ready to use when I lay up my 356/550 Spyder hybrid dash.

More later.

...and while I'm waiting for the paint to cure on my dash mould, I've started work on the body.

As my 'kit' is of dubious origin - I think it's a Banham New Speedster, but I'm not certain - some panels don't appear to be quite the same size as your average Speedster kit.

Having secured a curved grille from Martin & Walker, I found that it was exactly 1/2" too long for the opening in the engine cover. Additionally, the radius of the corners of the opening didn't quite match that of the grille and the curve didn't match at the lower edge just for good measure.

So, using a technique I developed when trying to get the lower rear edges of my Sammio bonnet to match the curve of the body, I cut a section out of the opening and sawed 'comb' teeth around the opening where it needed to move. With the grille encased in polythene sheet and fitted in place, I then glassed the reverse of the engine cover, fixing the 'comb' teeth in their new positions -

https://i.ibb.co/XWbMCgG/IMG-20200606-144710427.jpg

The grille now fits the opening and the opening matches the curve of the grill, so I'm happy with the results -

https://i.ibb.co/xDxGhBF/IMG-20200606-145056918.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/LpQHsZT/IMG-20200606-144934617.jpg

I also decided to see if I could make a head-fairing that would suit the Speedster body shape. Most of the fairings I've seen added to Speedsters look a bit short and dumpy to my eye, so I thought I'd try to replicate the ones Porsche fitted to the 718RSK Spyders -

https://i.ibb.co/0JQzY6M/1280px-Pors...RSK-Spyder.jpg

I'd already made a start on fabricating a rear deck cover that (deliberately) looks a lot like the RSK's rear deck, but to make a start on the fairing I needed something roughly the right size and shape to use as a template for the head fairing 'pad' itself.

Luckily, I had previously used a sheet of plywood as base when spraying some Triumph engine parts and noticed this outline of the front timing cover -

https://i.ibb.co/SPnYgYT/IMG-20200609-125920555.jpg

A bit of pencilling in followed by some careful jigsaw action and my head pad was pretty much the right size and shape. Having measured the distance and drop from the front face of my deck cover to the engine lid opening and with reference to many images of cars with head fairings (including my old Spyder) I drew the profile shape of the fairing freehand onto some plywood and cut that out.

The next steps were to cut out smaller and smaller versions of the head pad shape and slot them together like this -

https://i.ibb.co/z6R4GMX/IMG-20200609-172910205.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/Qd7BqXW/IMG-20200609-172916466.jpg

...resulting in a former to work from that looks like this -

https://i.ibb.co/yVgQHYZ/IMG-20200610-162017687.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/HFH9DCw/IMG-20200610-162004151.jpg

Happy with progress so far, next step is to cover it with cardboard and parcel tape and glass over the outside, wihch I'm off to do now.

More later :)

Good work , will it be detachable from the rear deck cover ??

Thanks and yes, the rear deck and fairing will be separate mouldings, mainly to ensure that the rear deck cover seals properly to the tub.

The rubber U channel seal I have to go around the edge of the deck cover will run through notches in the fairing. If I make the fairing integral to the deck cover there'll be two 'weak' points where water could get in. The plan is to have a mohair tonneau cover mounted under the leading edge of the deck cover so it can be rolled out from underneath and seal the cockpit at the same level as the door tops and dash.

It's so simple it might just work...

That looks terrific, very different but we'll resolved and nicely cohesive with the body shape. Great work.

I was reading about the cars used in Ford vs Ferrari a couple of days ago. The interview was with one of the production crew. Apparently the red 356 Matt Damon is seen driving around in was one of several 356 replicas the company happened to own already and guess what they were based on? According to the Bloomberg article....Mazda Miatas - MX5s in pounds shillings and pence! So if a front engined 356 is good enough for Matt Damon you're in good company :-)

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like what I'm doing.

I've watched Ford vs Ferrari during the lockdown and did notice that Speedster and it looked great.

I'm a little surprised it was a Miata in a party frock - the Mazda wheelbase is seven inches longer (ironically only 3mm different to the Banham New Speedster body I started with before I shortened the doors) and the track is six inches wider, so the car would look very big if it was parked next to an original, a bit like a BMW Mini parked next to a proper one.

It did look fine on screen, though, but then people and things can look bigger or smaller when they're filmed - Tom Cruise always looks six-foot plus in his movies as do Ben Stiller and Arnie (The Governator), but they're all famously short-arses, and Father Ted spends most of an episode explaining the difference between 'small' and 'far away' to Father Dougal.

I'll be making some more progress over the weekend so I'll post another update then.

And I've just noticed that the red Speedster driven by Matt Damon also has a rear deck cover and head fairing -

https://i.ibb.co/yF7g0Mq/Porsche-356...-1-780x327.jpg

(image sourced here - https://productplacementblog.com/mov...-ferrari-2019/ )

Looks pretty good to me.

One thing I've noticed is that the rear deck covers I've seen fitted to Speedsters often run straight across between the rear of the door openings. I trial fitted my seats in position (when I was assessing whether my madcap Spitfire/Speedster plan was feasible), and found that my back will encroach a couple of inches into the rear space behind the doors if I'm to get a comfortable driving position.

For that reason I've set the front edge of my deck back about 80mm (it'll have padded trim added), but I did initially include curved 'horns' either side so the deck cover extended to meet the door openings. I recently cut those off because they were visibly not symetrical, but I see from the image above that Matt Damon's car has that feature - the front edges of the deck cover meet the door tops but the cover then curves back to allow the driver and passenger more space. It looks that good that I think I'll give those horns another go. :)

Oh, and you can see from the fact that Matt's Speedster isn't dwarfed by the Yank Tank parked behind it that it's clearly much bigger than the genuine article.

There's another famous movie that uses a 356 Speedster, Top Gun. Kelly McGillis drives this black one, which must also be a replica as it's clearly only 2/3rds scale because it only comes up to Tom Cruise's waist and it should Tower over him...

https://i.ibb.co/3cthL5g/e6e108312e4...bce287bc56.jpg

Mr T Sorry to hear the dash mould didn’t work as planned.

But at least you seem to have got back to the point where it should work.

Nice work on fitting the grill and getting the basic shape for your head fairing. :cool:

I was also unaware of the ‘behind the scenes’ history of the Le Mans 66 Speedster.

But have now found this photo to help me understand what you are aiming for.

https://www.rcnmag.com/resources/ima...ri_Cars28.jpeg

Good luck, Paul. :)