MadaboutKitcars

Love the sound. The car is looking great. I am anxious to get my widened version to the US so that I can get going on it!

Looks and sounds awsome. Well done!

I've got the 2 part windscreen (screen and separate bottom border) and i was wondering how people are mounting theirs, as during my recent round of filling and sanding i've seen dust come underneath so i assume that wind will as well!

I know that some have bonded the bottom strip onto the body and made it look like part of the body.

But for the remainder who have bolted/bonded theirs on, how have you sealed it to the body?

GOOD OLD SIKKOFLEX OR TIGER SEAL..About a tenner a tube but fantastic stuff.....Mask up both sides that you don't want the sealer leaving the gap you want to fill....pipe it gently into the gap and use a damp finger to smooth it out - bit like mastiking around the bath !

As soon as the sealer is smoothed out , remove the masking tape gently but swiftly and leave to cure for a few hours....any bits that look a bit raggy can be trimmed with a blade after the sealer has been cured...

cool, ta.
i've got a tube in the garage and i'll give it a go when i've finished remodelling the bonnet shut line.

I've now sorted the bonnet out, by:

• Lowering the springs the extra 20mm, making it 80mm in total.
• Bringing the top edge of the bonnet fwd about 15/20mm which allowed the front edge to sit better (the 6 cylinder engine is obviously longer than the 4 pot and where the top water hose joins is quite high!)
• Fabricating some new hinge mount hangers.
• Filling along the top of the bulkhead and inserting a steel bar that follows the contour of the bonnet in order to give something to stick the weather proofing strip on to.

I've also bonded the grill in and fitted the front lights and indicators to cheer myself up and all the electrics are now in and fitted!

Just got to fit the horns, side mirrors, front number plate and bonnet straps, and then it's just painting and fitting the interior cards and floor, which are sitting in my front room already wrapped in black vinyl.

Then off to the local garage for a once over and an MOT hopefully later this week!

Looking MUCH better!

She is beautiful
All that hard work and heartache were worth it.
Just a couple of mm seem to made it look much longer and sleeker.
Grr mine might end up the ugly duckling here= perhaps i will have to hide it behind in the second row at the meets and shows.

What a difference! That really has sorted the looks and I'm loving that Alfa red paint. What was the shade only there seem to be dozens of different Alfa reds available?

Very smart Dave, going to Exeter then Skippy's in for paint...PAT

Looks good Dave only a fellow Sammio builder will know all the hard work and time that you have invested in your car but it was all worth it well done. The different appearance is know spot on.

I want to keep the interior of the Sammio very much "function over form", but I've found that my next door neighbour has a load of old car parts that she's going to get rid of and i've had 1st dibs!

So I've just come away with:

a centre console with a ye-olde radio fitted
A chromed metal door net
and this _superb_ find which i knew i had to have as soon as i saw it!




If there are any used/period lights, instruments, interior bits-n-bobs that people are after then let me know and i can go around and have a rummage and she what she wants for them.

She hasn't got a Vitesse chassis in there somewhere has she?

Hi Dave, lowered floor pans...

did you fold the side to make a box, or cut strips of metal for sides? also 'H' shape re-inforcement is that cut in one piece and if so, how?

I had planned on cutting a single sheet and simply folding and welding the sides (like a big origami sculpture) but i ended up cutting a sheet for the floor and then welding strips on to that in order to get the height as the front and back are both sloping slightly as i bought big seats and i've fitted them at an angle. If you look carefully you can see it in this photo, along with all the seam welding on the insides that i couldn't be @rsed to grind down



Also in that pic you can see the inner H-frames i made. I'd used 1.2mm for the floor and sides so i could have just used large spreader plates, but i'd walked over the floor pans a few times and i thought they needed to have a bit more strength, so i cut two lengths of 3mm strip (running front to back in that pic) and then joined them with a cross piece (easily seen where the sound deadening goes over it) and welded all that in place. I was going to use some oblong box section, but that raised the seats up too much and negated doing the drop in the first place!


Something else to consider is the back inner corner of the passengers side floor pan. I altered that so that i can easily access the petrol and brake line joiners on the chassis rail from underneath. You can see how it turned out on this photo, It's the "stepped-in" part by the lower passenger seat belt mount:





TBH it's all most probably a bit ott and i could have got away with less, but i was enjoying myself

A lot of welding!

I wonder if Pat has started any welding yet? I was told if i bought a mig welder on the friday, i would be welding by sunday? would you agree, any tips.

Another question.
Bonding paste, do you mix a hardener with it?

Ref home welding, have a good read here: http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/index.php

then... go out and buy a Clarke!

As far as learning to weld is concerned the best tip i was given was to get yourself a wheelbarrow full of steel of different shapes and thickness's and lengths.
Then when you've welded all of it together and you're confident that you can do strong welds and not just pretty welds, then, and only then, do stuff for the car
I admit that my 'wheelbarrow' was actually my last project that i eventually killed off, but the principle is the same.

Or take an evening class.

Bonding paste is basically uber-filler (sort of), so yes you do mix the appropriate hardener with it, it also takes longer to set than filler.

Mig is pretty easy but you must keep the metal clean from any rust, it just wont be a strong enough join - you want bright steel.
My set up cost me £30, it is an ancient welder, i buy the gasless wire, best buy is on flee bay, think it was +-£40 for a 10kg reel, far more economical than the 1/2kg reels from Halfrauds.
Good luck

Thanks for this very useful link and the sound advice about the practice pieces. I shall be creating some modern metal sculpture before tackling my chassis.

And this weeks theme is... two steps forward, one step back

The more i jiggle and the bonnet the more i realise that i'm going to have to make some more serious mods to how i've fitted it in order to get a better look around the wheels as i'm still not happy.

I think I'm in this position mainly due to the fact that it was all initially fabricated and fitted with the car in the garage (as i hadn't rewired the engine so i couldn't move it in and out easily) and that in my small garage i couldn't really appreciate how the gaps around the wheels actually looked. That coupled with the fact that this is the first car i've built, i was simply just happy at it looking even mildly good!

So last night i had a bit of a 'moment' and decided to say stuff it and sort it out properly. I have been trying to push ahead and make Exeter, but I'd rather it looked right! So now i 'may' make it, but I'm not at all sure..

So after a full night cutting and jiggling of my nicely painted bonnet and modding the bulkhead top some more, i'm starting to get there.

But the one thing that does stand out is that on the left hand side, with the straight 6 fitted you are limited as to how much you can lower the bonnet due to the height of the top front of the engine where the water pipe comes out. So I'm pretty much reserved to the fact that I'm going to have to chop a hole in the bonnet and fit a scoop or a bulge and then cut and re-weld the bonnet hinges so that i can get rid of my lowering brackets and connect straight to the chassis hinge point. ho humm.... we live and learn.

No rush, Dave...

Hopefully you have years with this car, and it is October! it will all be sorted by M ay!

Bonnet bulged!

The area of fiberglass i cut out to allow the bonnet to drop down over the top engine water gubbins, i cut into strips and then laid them front to back at regular intervals over the hole i'd made in the bonnet.

I stuck them in place with a dob of filler.
Fiberglassed over the top of them.
Then covered the back in a thin layer of bonding paste to fill the gaps and join it all together.
I've now Filled over the front side and sanded it (arghh more bl00dy sanding!) to get a nice smooth profile and while it's turned out good, it does look "different' as i was originally aiming for a nice clean simple bonnet. But i quite like the concept of function defining form so i'll just have to get used to it.

Hopefully the bonnet shut line and new bulge will be all fully filled and sanded tomorrow and i will remove the lights ready to paint hopefully on Monday & Tuesday. Flat & Polish (again) on Wednesday and refit lights. Then if it's all still working then possibly try and MOT on Thurs/Fri and drive to Exeter on Sat/Sun?

Don't you just love and optimist!

Wow, sounds like you've been pretty busy but you just need to take a look at Trevors photos (amongst others) to see that it's worth all the effort.

I like the concept of form following function too and I'm guessing I'm also going to need to scoop my bonnet to clear the straight 6. Some pics of the work-in-progress would be nice.

I'm not sure how Dave is tackling his car exactly , no way is particular right or wrong ....we have fitted two bonnets to Vitesse based cars and never had to bulge the bonnet....you can move alternators , water hoses etc to get clearance in most circumstances ....having said that , if your method involves a scoop or bulge , the cars won't lose anything visually for it ...these cars can get away with little mods like that..

They sure can Gary, it's a great base to build your dream car from imho.

I do like the scoop on the bonnet of Phil Jacklins car. Is it one of yours or something they fabricated/bought themselves?

I'll try and chuck some pics up when i get a spare mo so people can see why i've had to do this mod to mine as it's been mainly the top water hose and the part that it attaches to that have caused me the headache.

As Gary has said, with a bit more planning in the engine bay i possibly could have moved things about and avoided doing this, but i'm not 100% sure.

But each to their own and this solution was the one that most appealed to me and what's the worst that can happen? If it all goes wrong or i don't like it in the future then i can simply cut it out and try something else

As i've said before, this whole Heath Robinson aspect to these cars, where we don't feel afraid to try different things is one that attracted me in the first place

Note: It's worth adding that my donor was actually a Herald 13/60 that had been upgraded to Vitesse MK2 spec in the early 80's using what turns out to be a GT6 engine (largely identical to the Vitesse MK2 engine i've been told), so it may be different in subtle ways to a 'true' Vitesse?