MadaboutKitcars

Yeah,

Steelies for the win, or whatever the youngsters say these days

That'll be 'dope' then.......probably....unless its changed already...

I really liked the Minilites, but these look better! Good job..

They're bear wheels.

Or they are well sick

If I ever get and build a Kobra it is having black steels. Wide ones though if I can work out the maths minefield of offsets

Dave

Me too.

I'm really glad you're happy with the wheels Geoff. Though I say it myself, they do look really good on your car. The dished look the small ET gives (ET18 if I recall correctly) looks right and if you want wider tyres you could have them banded on the inside without spoiling the looks or fouling anything. I'm now officially jealous as f!!!

Geoff - The wheels look good, as does your interior, exhaust pipes, etc.

Can I ask what kind of reaction you get while driving this around?

Does the "old" number plate throw people off the scent?

Cheers, Paul.

Good morning all , many thanks for all the positive comments , Paul as soon as your car hits the road you will find out about answering questions along the lines of is it a ???? and the "double takes" thanks Geoff .

Love the colour of this car, reminds me of a Scalextric 250 (blue with red interior) I had back in the 60's, have loved the 250 ever since then.

Andy

Just found one on ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scalextric-Ferrari-GT250-Berlinetta-Cat-No-C69-E4-/142041290748?hash=item21125217fc:g:S2AAAOSwzJ5XdTV7

Good evening all , i needed to go to B+Q on Friday last and decided to go in the SWB , jumped in fired it up and instead of idling smoothly at about 1200 when cold , it idled lumpily at 750 when i flicked the accelerator it cut out and would not restart . Did the B+Q run then tried starting again eventually fired up but idled roughly , decided at this point to check the plugs (nu 1) which was black so walked down to the local accessory shop in the village to buy a set (6) of NGK`s finest , £52 after discount , the guy in the shop suggested that the plugs would probably not be the problem but suggested buying a "coil pack" then testing each coil pack in turn till the faulty one was found . This was about 13:30 they ordered one in to arrive before 16:15 , which it did , as the coil pack was off Nu1 i replaced that one turned the engine over and after a few seconds sprung into life (happy days) have been back to the shop to say thank you and have ordered another as a spare . I am pretty sure my first car a 997cc Ford Anglia did not have coil packs and seemed to run OK! thanks Geoff .

It's worth buying some 2nd hand coil packs from Ebay. My wife had an E46 and it used to eat coil packs. Bought a set of 6 from Ebay for £25. Left a couple in the boot and kept the rest on the shelf. Had gone through half of them by the time the car was sold.

Hi Geoff got ya message . Will look nice when finished. But I'm guessing if it was to become a product Chris would need at least 10-15 sales to make it worth the effort. All the shape is their. Ive bought a different bonnet bulge that was on a 2600 coupe and looks custom period. I'm just hoping my donor is still alive to be able to drive after all of chris's effort. After the gearbox gave up on me the car and parts and labour mechanically owes quite a bit.

Good evening , i haven`t used the SWB for a couple of weeks so i decided one Saturday to give it a run , the battery has been weak for some time so i wasn`t to hopeful , well it would hardly turn over and also threw up an EML on the dash . The following weekend with new battery in hand (well two) that was fitted the engine now turned over as you would imagine but would still not fire . Back in Summer before the trip to Italy a coil pack has failed and the symptoms were the same this time , this time i decided to replace all 6 coilpacks , they were ordered and fitted the following weekend a really easy job . So back into the car ignition on (still with an EML) and engine turned over but would not fire immediately i kept it turning over and eventually it fired up although the exhaust note didn`t sound right , after a couple of minutes running at approx 2500 rpm i tried the idling , it would idle but at 500 rather than 650/700 which it usually did . I decided it was time to go out for a drive , the engine ran but with little power . I called in at the local garage to ask the guys there to connect there tester to the cars engine mgmt system , it showed a number of fault as expected , they reset the system and then reset the EML , there was an immediate change in engine note and the idling changed to 650/700 , the mechanic who i spoke to told me that when a coil pack fails the engine mgmt system cuts the fuel to that cylinder and so my car had been running on 5 until the EML is reset , after another drive to check i can confirm we have 6 working cylinders and the exhaust note is back , if anybody else has a similar problem hope this helps , thanks Geoff .

It's worth getting a universal OBDII (Onboard Diagnostics Display) reader for about £35 on eBay to check for fault codes yourself. That's about half of what most garages will charge just to hook their's up to your car.
You can read the codes, see what they relate to and delete them yourself.

Not with a Z3, but i have found that flat batteries can really upset the computers running the car. It could be that the flat battery caused the EML and the car decided to take some action!

Good evening all , if you have followed my thread you will be aware that my car was an early build (By Tribute) following Bob`s , at that time it was to early for the front edge of the door/bonnet mod , since then a number of companies/individuals have carried out that mod and that gap/look is much improved , so my question is , is there somebody prepared to quote for the work to be done to my car? in an ideal world it would not be at the other end of the country (i live in Cheshire) but that`s what may happen , please PM me , many thanks Geoff .

I answered Geoff's request for help regarding the door to bonnet gap,

I recommended Leigh at Automirage in Black pool due to him being nearer than me, plus he has a lot of experience with fiberglass cars.

Due to the distance between us I didn't think I would be quoting for the work, however I did mention to Geoff that I was going to be at Donnington that week end and maybe we could meet up for a chat.

So on a very wet and windy Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago I met Geoff outside the Motor museum at Donnington, had a look at his car and he had a nosey around mine.



I gave him a rough idea of costings, it must of sounded ok to Geoff as he then said "ok I will bring it down to you next Saturday" so following Saturday he arrived, a quick run thru of what was needed and I took him back to the station where he took the long journey back oop North.

Apart from the gaps being a bit iffy the car wasn't too bad considering it lives outside in all weathers under a cover, one small problem mentioned was that the doors did not open very far plus their were a couple of star cracks here and there.

Anyway I had a week to do the job as Geoff was booked on the train to come down the following Saturday.

Here are some pics of the work carried out.
This is how far the doors opened.

On the drivers side the door was sticking out quite a bit, the skins have been bonded on which is good as it stops them moving around, so i had to split the skin and push it back in down the leading edge.



The other thing Geoff wanted was some narrower top door mouldings as the ones fitted were rather wide, the skin on the drivers door was not a good fit to the window at the rear of the door so I folded up a sheet of alloy and glassed it in on the top edge.


The passenger door bonnet gap was not too bad, it was just the bonnet sticking out a bit too far, as we didn't want to take the bonnet off to do the cut and pull method I slit open the inner and outer skin, removed the material required and re bonded it back together.


There were a couple of sink marks and cracks were the bonnet straps had been fitted, these were ground out, glassed up and filled.


Then it was on to the painting side of things, 1st off some Polyester primer, I put this on with a roller just for speed really.



The other concern Geoff had was where the pillar meets the roof, it had been cut and filled but had a rather large gap, this was reduced and also straightened up a bit both sides

Then it was on to getting it in to 2k high build primer, we were originally not going to get involved doing the roof, rear wings, boot lid etc, one to keep cost down and two due to the time available, however best laid plans and all that, so I blocked the roof and got that in primer along with the doors and front clip.

Then it was guide coated, flatted and re masked ready for colour.

So that took us up to Thursday evening, I only had Friday left to flat n polish and do all the refitting.

I think the car has come out very well,
Geoff seemed very happy with it when he picked it up at lunch time today, well he paid any way lol.

Here are a couple of pics of the car in good company.












Well that's it, been a long week on Geoff's car but as a customer he has been a delight to work with, I hope the car continues to give you lots of enjoyment Geoff and these pics are just a record of the car's development for you.

Regards Jeff.

Very nice work Jeff, I'm sure Geoff is very pleased.

Interesting to see 3 cars together so we can see the slight differences we make when we build them. I expect that's the most there's been together in one photo.

Bob.

Great thread thank you ! Really interesting to see the results of great work.

Also seeing the cars next to each other shows how some small details make such a difference. You might think Geoff's blue SWB had a slightly wider grill but it is just down to colour of both the car itself and the grill surround.

They do look excellent together.

My compliments to all three owners and especially builders.

Dave

You ought to post the pic of the three cars on Piston Heads or similar and ask them to identify the genuine one.

I can guarantee pages of posts pointing out who has the fuel filler in the correct place, who has the correct indicators etc...


I am really looking forward to the Owners Club BBQ in June with 10 cars all lined up

Top work Jeff, well done, a noticable improvement

These hardtops.....................common as muck!

I do like the idea of putting the polyester primer on with a roller. I presume you used one of the small dense gloss foam rollers?

What was preventing the door from opening, looks as if it was only partially opening.