Hello all,
My name is Scottie, (I'm a bit new at this posting thing, hope it comes out right)
I have started to build one of Chris's A352's. I live in Hereford.
Are there any people around this area doing anything similar?
This is a build with a slight difference, I am doing my absolute best to re-create a Jaguar XKSS
I am getting there very slowly and will start to post some pics of what I have done so far.
I am hoping for a lot more than 50%!!!!
donar car
It sounds very mundane, but it happens to be a Triumph Spitfire.
The engine is only around 70 or 80 BHP, but with the car being a possible 500 Kilos ish, it should be quite nippy. There are other engine options of course but they may come later. I really want to post lots of pictures, but
embarassingly , don't know how!! Can you help please?
Being a newbie has its drawbacks, there does not appear to be any help info that relates to posting pics.
Many thanks to Mr Towed and WCA, I'll have a go.
I wish I was as good at posting pics as I am at hacking donar cars up!!!
progress so far
I have managed to get some of my pictures onto photo bucket, thanks to Fat Bloke's help, but I so far have failed to get them on this forum!
Watch this space! This SO FRUSTRATING!!!
I finally got a sodding picture on the forum! Can't guarantee doing it again, but I will try.
Before the body shell arrived I tackled the problem of getting decent looking wheels. The Spitfire ones are just that - Spitfire ones.
I wanted replica Dunlop wheels like the original.
The cheapest I could find replicas were in the region of £350 each, which I could not afford ( or rather just would not pay)
I found a company on the internet which were willing to make me wheels
and if I wanted polished ones like Steve McQueen had on his XKSS they said they would cost me- wait for it £1600 AND that was EACH.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I didn't bother asking if VAT was to be added.........
In the end, I found I had some 5.5j Triumph GT6 steel wheels, but they were solid disc type. They did not have the 15 one inch holes
and the 15 1/4 inch holes .
So I drilled out 120 holes in total,had them shot blasted, and with the
£6000 odd quid I'd saved by not buying the polished ones took them to a paint shop for a good job.
holes
Yes you are right! 120
Drilling holes is boring.........
It took about an hour per wheel and I still use the same two bits/ hole cutters now
While I was waiting for my body shell, I had time to work out what I wanted to achieve and how I was going to do that.
Replicas are by definition frauds, and a lot of so called kit cars fall into this category also.
If a Jaguar based XKSS is a fraud, how fraudulent must a Triumph Spitfire based one
Be?? An incredibly naughty fraud I think!
Fraud it may be, but to be half believable, it must be a damned good one, so attention to detail becomes very important.
An XKSS is an iconic car, and a replica must have all of the salient features that make the car unique. After I finished the wheels to as good a standard as I could on my limited budget, I decide to tackle the very obvious side exhaust.
On the original car, the exhaust is on the left because the XK engine has the manifold that side. Unfortunately the Spitfire has the exhaust manifold on the right, which meant having to get the gasses under the car floor and out to the left side.
Because the finished car will be as low as I can get it, I could not use a large bore pipe
To go under the floor, for obvious reasons, then it occurred to me that I could , if I squashed it almost flat.
I worked out the surface area of the original pipe, squashed a much larger one, which when “flat” would give me a little more area than the original pipe and the problem was solved. All I had to do now was make it.
The whole thing including the silencer box was to be made of stainless steel.
I have tried to show the results in the pictures to follow, its not finished yet, but most of the hard work and problems have been sorted out.
The system is made from discarded stainless steel bits and bobs from my local scrapyard at peanut prices. The most expensive buy was the argon gas needed to weld it all up.
