Thread: Project Sebring GT Spyder

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Thanks guys. I have to admit that it worked better right off the bat than I really thought it would. Everybody gets lucky sometime. The picture of the hooks is actually the finished version. They were much simpler at first because I was sure I would have to remake them at least a couple of times.

Yes, I made the rollers and the grooves were a little too tight in the beginning. That was what I had to tweak. I had to widen the grooves to get the rollers to reliably drop over the tracks.

After the initial test, I set about mounting everything more permanently. I used some rivet nuts that are made for composite materials.





They expand like a drywall plug, but are much heavier duty and really bite into the backside, as well as spread the load over a larger area. You can see the difference between a regular rivet nut for metal and the composite one. Lots of people use the metal nuts in fiberglass, but they have been known to strip and start turning if pushed too far.





Of course there was a hitch (isn't there always a hitch?). My rivet nut tool mandrel was too short to grab the threads in the longer nut. I scratched around in my scrap hardware, cut a piece of tubing and came up with an adapter. It worked great.

My celebration for how well the system worked got a little let down after I got the parts bolted down. The clecos had let the parts move around a little and when they were finally mounted solid, they didn't want to play nice together anymore. I had to tweak the rollers a little more and move the hinge brackets around a little, but eventually I argued it into submission. The hood dropped into it's recess and swung well out in front of the grille when open.

It was time to work on the latch and fix another screw up. Well, maybe not a screw up, just a case of running out of room. I'll try to get that up tomorrow evening. I still have to take a couple of pictures. I thought I had taken them during the build, but can't seem to locate them.

As always - Thanks for the updates and pics.

When I built the radiator mount, I wanted the radiator to stand as vertically as I could. I didn’t want to lay it back since this can inhibit air flow through the core. Standing it up ate up a lot of the space where the hood latch had to live. The hood half of the latch has a safety hook on it and that was part of the problem. If the latch was mounted directly to the hood, the safety catch stuck down far enough to hit the top of the radiator support. Since I didn’t want to eliminate the safety catch, I had to come up with a solution.

Also, the spring on the hood latch pin didn’t have quite enough room to compress when the hood was down.

My fix for this was to machine a billet aluminum base for the upper latch parts. This base drops into a hollow area in the hood and raises the mounting location of the various latch parts up higher. It is held in place by a couple of steel u-shaped parts that fit over the billet part and sandwich it to the hood. I did have to cut the original safety catch handle off and rivet another one on lower down on the catch, but it works fine. I did had to grind out a slot in the body to clear the safety catch handle as there was no room to get a finger on it otherwise. The new hook handle is held on right now by pop rivets, but will get aircraft rivets after the bare steel gets painted.






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I machined the base out of a piece of 2” thick 6061 plate that I’ve had kicking around for many, many years. I’ve been saving it for a worthwhile project and this seemed like a good one. I’m not fan of billet parts just for the sake of having billet, but when it solves a real problem, I’m ok with it.







I made transfer punch that snapped into the lower latch and used this to make a small mark on the hood. I drilled a 1/4" hole in this location. While I was roughing out the latch base, I drilled a 1/4" hole in the location of the latch pin and used a 1/4" transfer punch as a locating dowel in the hood. All this so that I could mark the location of the larger opening for the billet latch base.

While I was working on the latch, it occurred to me that I had built a very “armored” setup. So armored in fact, that If the latch cable ever broke, I was going to be in a real bind. There was no way to open the latch without causing major damage. I decided that a back up hood release would be a prudent idea.



I welded a short arm on the latch release and ran a ¼” steel rod through holes drilled on either side of the latch base. This rod has a short piece of 5/16” coupling nut welded on that just happened to be laying on the welding table. The end of the rod is threaded ¼ x 20 and has a long coupling nut threaded on. When the rod is pulled, the welded on nut contacts the arm on the release and the latch opens. It’s all very simple, direct, heavy duty and it doesn’t interfere with a cable release. I’m still going to use a remote cable, but this one will give me a little piece of mind that I won’t have to cut the car apart one day to open the hood.



Here you can just see the 1/4" coupling nut on the end of the rod through the adjuster hole in the base.



I’m using some ¼” all thread for a temporary handle, but when I get the inner fenders back on, it will get a permanent “hidden” handle under the driver side fender.

More great work! Funny how you "just happen to have" the bits and pieces.. LOL..

Again, thanks for the pics and updates. This car has so many nice "bits" built into it, we can't wait to hear it's on the road and get an update as to driving / handling.

34, yeah funny how that works. Truth is, that my shop will never make the cover of Better Shops and Gardens. I'm the only one that goes in there 99.9% of the time and it tends to get a little cluttered with stuff. I try not to include that clutter in the pictures that I post.

I save lots of small off cuts as I've found they come in very handy and I literally have a small pile of them laying on the corner of my welding table.

I think Thomas Edison once said that to invent, you needed an idea and a big scrap pile! I definitely resemble that remark!

Better Shops & Gardens..

I'm the same when it comes to "bits & pieces".. you never know when you will need some tidbit to make a bracket or gusset or.. whatever.. my problem has been I ended up with a bunch of "mystery metal".. some round stock steel that doesn't turn good nor weld smooth.. but I can't just toss it out!!

Nice work, I'm envious of your ability to machine parts from scratch. My problem is I can't seem to throw out any scraps so now I have buckets of scrap that I really hate digging through to maybe find that perfect whats it.

Yeah, I used to use buckets for everything. Now I just use them for the longer pieces that I can see well. The little pieces just get thrown onto my table where I can at least have a chance to spot something usable. Tends to look bad, though. Every now and then I just have to kind of sort through it and toss some of it.

34, I know what you mean. I pack ratted some old dragline pins home and they have been hardened to the point that they are pretty much non machinable. I have been hanging on to them as I want to build a small foundry for casting aluminum and I could throw those pieces in the furnace and anneal them. That hasn't happened and I may just haul them off for scrap.

The last thing I had to do to the hood was to add some small 20 lb gas springs to the hinge frame. These provide a little extra lift on the initial opening off the latch and keep the hood pushed away from the front of the car when fully open. I also replaced the all thread axle and spacer washers with some machined aluminum spacers and shoulder bolts.



Here is the finished setup. I must say that while it’s definitely complicated, it works like a champ. I think it gives the car a little custom touch.



Here is a shot of everything folded up under the hood.

The air cleaner falls perfectly into the hollow area almost directly behind the fake hood scoop. It is practically begging for that scoop to be made functional. Except for a few of the race cars, the original Healeys never had working scoops. I’ll probably open this one up for a little fresh air for the engine. I should most likely fab an air box for it and come up with a way to keep water out when it’s raining, too. As if I didn’t already have a long list of things to do.

Speaking of that list of things to do. After I finished the hood, I was sitting in front of the shop fan (it’s been unseasonably hot around here lately) drinking a Coke when it occurred to me that I was actually getting close to finishing this project enough for it to move under it's own power. At least I’m close enough to see some light at the end of the tunnel. As I sat there looking the car over and soaking up the cool breeze, I went over a mental list of things that needed to be done and I decided that I needed to change my course slightly.

I always keep a fairly detailed list of things that need to be done in a Word file on my laptop. I simply can’t remember every little detail that needs to be completed all the time, so I keep a running list. This list gets edited often and rearranged to keep things moving in a reasonably logical manner. I see that I’m not alone, since practically every TV build show has some form of list.

I’ve decided to focus my efforts on getting the chassis finished to the point that I can blast and paint it. There isn’t a lot left to do to get to that stage. Once the chassis is painted, My work can be directed toward getting the various systems finished that will make it an actual running car, instead of just a piece of garage art.

The way I have planned this car to go together is different than most car projects. The chassis is actually most of the car. The body is just a shell that covers it up and gives a place to hang the dash and lights. 90 - 95% of all the systems, including the wiring and AC, will be complete in the chassis. The bare chassis can be driven around like a big go-kart. I got this idea from the way that Factory Five Cobras are built. This means that when the chassis is driveable, the car is very nearly done.

I’ve said every year for the last two years that I would like to drive this car before the end of the year and never made that goal, but this time it actually feels as if I can make that happen. The bodywork may not be finished, but I will be able to drive the car.

To that end, I have revamped my list. It may seem for a while that I’m just jumping around on the car without a plan, but everything I will be doing for the next few installments is going to be directed toward getting the chassis in paint.

Nice job on the hood hinges and latch, looks like a lot of engineering and work went into that.

Man, all those hand made bits look great and your hinge setup is stunning! Great work. I can't even show my stuff now after seeing yours.

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I agree. Those 20 pound springs are slick. I hadn't considered you might be using something like that. I had it in my head that there'd be an adjustable link the same as the main support/struts.

Thanks guys. I'm glad it's done and that it works. The hood has been bugging me for a long time and I think something like that can be an unconscious stopper of progress even though there are things that you are getting done. Since I'm done with it, I seem to have gotten a boost in the speed that other things are progressing.

V8, you said something earlier about my machining. I delayed the start on another car project for about 5 years while I saved money and gathered the machine tools. I made my living for many years as a machinist and when I changed careers, I lost access to any machinery. I finally got tired of not being able to use a skill set that I had spent most of my life learning and decided to do something about it.

40, don't let me scare you off.

34, I thought about that, but it was going to be just too complicated and fiddly. I also thought about using plain old coil springs, but they looked a little too industrial. I would have bought stainless gas springs, but they were about $75 each! The ones I used were less that $20 each.