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Thought this may interest a few people on the forum. Has this shell sitting for a few years now with a small idea in mind, always loved the look of the historic race cars but as someone without the driving skill and funds to race i am building a road replica.

The car had been hit at a point in its life and badly repaired, so i ended up putting on: Full boot floor, rear panel converted to mk1 spec, full m-machine floor, pair of inner wings, pair of quarters, door steps, inner/ outer a panels, toe board, corner bulkhead repair section, pair of fabricated bulkhead to quarter stiffeners, a bottom repair to the rear 'firewall'. And the list goes on. At the moment i am waiting for the front wings, front panel and scuttle to be ready for click and collect from minispares, also in this order is a safety devices full weld in cage, and a rear subframe, that i may just add a few seam welds into.

I have alot of parts in storage that i hope to put on this car that i have collected over the years. The excellent thing about the car is the roof is perfect, im not sure it it was replaced at one point but it is amazingly straight compared to how the rest of the car was, seeing as there was around 1/2" of filler in the quarters and rear panel. The bootlid was also extremely damaged in the hit, it is a fluted lid, which is wrong for the year of car, but i like the look and i am trying to use up parts, ended up pin pulling the large dent out which was just filled over by the previous owner and then gave a small skim of filler.

So lets let the pictures do the talking, sadly i dont have any photos of the car before, i jumped into it in lockdown and lost track It was originally island blue so im wanting to go back to that colour with a black roof.

So firstly the body pictures:












I also built a former for the bottom bulkhead repair. Which turned out fairly well.






I won a 'lightened' subframe off ebay, not usually my cup of tea, but it will work well for this project. Sent it off for blasting and came out really well after some 2k primer and 2k black. Slight pitting it it, but happy with the outcome. You can also see the fuel tank which had the same treatment, which i found in the back of one of my mk1's as a spare.







Also some more of the components that i blasted in my cabinet and sprayed



Will post another update when the next bits arrive.

I'm always impressed by the skills people have on the forum.
Fair play to you, although it always seems quite logical how things are done I haven't the nerve.

very nice work!

Looks great Harry, another excellent build thread for everyone to look at and gain ideas from

Looks like a fantastic project Harry.

I look forward to watching it develop.

wantafaster1- Thanks
Nick W- Thanks, your racer 60 build was a bit of inspiration to do this.
Andrew- Thanks
Mk1- Thanks also, love your hillclimber build, and makes me not feel as bad putting an A+ engine in this when i saw yours was an MPI block.

Engine plans- as i have said above, will be going for an a+ as i dont have the budget on this one to run a larger early engine. I am hoping to run something with 1275cc + above, but hopefully a 1380. I have a source who has a 1310 with a weber on it, just rebuilt and very clean, would swap the weber for a pair of Hs4 though.

Small update, i welded blanks in on the inner wing and added some primer, as i am just going to drill new if i end up putting anything there




Also sanded / wire wheeled the old paint from the rear bulkhead and parcel shelf and added some kurust just for a small bit of protection before i get round to adding the arch to bulkhead stiffeners

I will also show just a few parts i am planning on using on this build, most bits have been stored and taken out of cars what these parts may not suit. Nothing massively impressive but a good starting point.

Old 16 blade fan which will be a good addition to the A+ engine



Pair of seat frames which will be slightly modified to make more suitable



Found in one of my cars: new boxed indicator switch/ stalk, Mg rover doughnuts, instrument binnacle (the temp and oil need a clean up) and i also need info of how to turn the mileage to zero as it it a new build. A smiths RPM gauge and nice cooper knob.







Pair of reconditioned arms, that also need spraying gloss when my subframe arrives



And just a few other random parts, will be running metal demist instead of plastic though.

Bit of a boring update which i wait for panels and the cage, ended up putting a skim of filler on the quarter joins, and the rear panel windscreen 'conversion'.



I found i was struggling sanding away with the usual bodyshop long and short blocks you can buy so ended up using building spacers, with 3m velcro on and using the mirka abranet on them which ended up great for getting along join lines and in corners



Also sanded a curved one to get right into the roof corners



Also after putting a bit of high build on the roof panel, used some cheap spray for a dust coat and block sanded back first with 120 abranet, dusted again and did 240, no black paint left behind so hopefully no filler work needed.




Will have some more interesting updates shortly when the bits are ready.

Massive thanks to Rich @ minispares north for the click and collect today, great service as usual.

Mock clamped and bolted the front panel, wings and scuttle on if the afternoon and want quite well, more fettling to do. But really good starting point.

Wanting to get the front end gapped and then spot welded on tomorrow so i can get on with welding the cage in.

So next was cage time, started on Wednesday and upto now it has taken me till around Sunday to get where i am now. Slow progress, lots of getting in the car, test fitting, getting out notching and so on.

So the cage as it came:





Getting main hoop in, and squared on the quarterlight. I have set the cage a bit further back than the historics, which should give more room:




Holes cut in the rear floor:




Cage dropped though the floor and fully welded:






Acetone used to remove grease and stop as much contamination as possible:



Got the floor plates and tunnel plates welded in:







I made some supports from the main hoop to the seat belt anchor points, which add a bit of detail. Wasnt sure if i liked it at first, but i do have a logo to be welded on the outers which should finish it off nice.











And some to this stage, finished pics:




Also managed to get 2 coats of 2k black on the subframe



Sorry for the amount of pictures, but hopefully it interests a few people.

Brilliant

Looks great! Proper Job!

I am gobsmacked as to how you've got done Harry - impressive mate

Thanks positive feedback, got the doorbars located



Fitted the bearings in the top arms, im sure everyone will recognise the spacer plates i used I do need to change around the thick and thin spacers when i offer up to the subframe.

Todays update:

Started work on the door bins, they have to be cut to accommodate the door bars, so decided on having them removable to help get paint in where you would never get a gun if just welded straight back in.

I will only show one door which will give you the picture of what i have done, the other door had a heritage skin and bottom at the start of the build so was much easier than this one. I was expecting to have to order another skin for this side, but looks like it will be fine.

Door bin removed, door bottom cut out, wire wheeled the skin back to bare metal and treated with kurust:




Door bottom tacked in:



Shortened bin tacked in and test fitted:




Made some 3mm brackets which will be welded onto the bin:




Then tacked the brackets onto the bin and test fitted



Just need to fully weld them, maybe tig, fully weld the door bottoms on and that job is done.



Luckily the seam strips all came with the car, i blasted them over the weekend and all came out really well and only had to cut around 2" from one and add a piece in. Which i was happy about seeing as the heritage ones will set you back £80




I also fully welded the door bars and top and bottom joins





After posting in the tech page about engine mounting and radiator shrouds i had a dig around on of my project cars and found some bits which will help the build progress

Little update,

Not got a whole lot done, but seem to have spent more money

The final panels arrived from m-machine:




I got the radius arms, engine mount, 2 peice radiator surround, brackets and steering shroud coated up:




And a pretty exciting update for me, is i collected the engine over the weekend, pretty nice spec, should do really well for me in this car. It is a fresh rebuild but was sat a while so will need repriming etc.
Here is the spec:

A+ Turbo block, deck machined approx 10thou below piston height @TDC, gearbox holes enlarged & tapped 7/16" UNF, centre main web machined to fit 'S' crankshaft, new cam bearings, bored & honed +30.
'S' EN40B crankshaft, cross-drilled & wedged.
Karl Schmidt forged +30 pistons with slotted crowns for valve clearance per David Vizard book. Fully-floating pins with Teflon buttons.
Steel connecting rods with ARP bolts.
Duplex timing chain, Kent vernier pulley, no tensioner.
Kent SP310 "scatter" cam plus matching double valve springs with alloy caps.
Aluminium pushrods.
Minisport 1.5:1 alloy roller rockers.
Minisprint "stage 3" cylinder head, machined for ~12.3:1 compression ratio. 11 stud fitment with ARP studs.
MLS stainless head gasket.
Steel flywheel.
New oil pump, water pump.
Modified/additional breathers on block.
Alloy valve cover.
Aldon non-vacuum electronic distributor.
Uprated clutch.







Masked up:




The only plans i really have for the engine is to give the block a coat of BMC green, add some green braided HT leads, swap the yellow engine mount out for the black, and get a set of twin HS4 carbs on there. There are a few bolts that the thin black coating has rusted so i am just going to mask and spray them. I will also be using breather tubes instead of the filters to give it more of a period look.

Im not massively technical with the engine/ carb side of thing so there may be a few questions coming, i will be sending the car to minisport rolling road to be tuned and set up before it goes on the road.

Hello very good job
my respects a very nice project
force go ahead

hi how do you fit the hood liner
cheers roger mcnab

Hi Roger,

Wont be having one, will be just having a square of sound deadening pad on there.

Small update:

Got the engine sprayed with paragon aerosol paint (lovely to use)




Took all of the masking off and fitted the braided ht leads:



Removed the yellow engine mount and fitted the black one instead:




The last real painting job on the engine is getting the black bolts which have gone slightly rusty painted again.