Thread: Project Sebring GT Spyder

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The grill looks fantastic, big improvement over the first one. Your attention to detail is impressive.

Good call on the 100-6 grille, that CR attempt was hideous.

Thanks guys.

Yeah, Bob, I agree. The old grille was complete mess.

I decided that I since I showed the final front look, it was as good a time as any to show the final rear look, too.

The lower lights are 50 Pontiac LED units from Rodworx (that is the correct spelling). I have their taillights in my 46 coupe and they are the brightest I have found. The original taillights in the Sebring were some kind of tractor or truck parts. I’m not sure why Classic Roadsters decided to put the big lights in the car. The original Healey had Lucas lights top and bottom that are the size of the upper lights. It may have been to meet some kind of federal regulations or maybe they were just cheap and available. At any rate, CR modified the body for the big lights and that’s the hand I was dealt.

The old lights





I found out about the Pontiac lights fitting on another site dedicated to these cars. I made some aluminum adapters for the holes. I will most likely get them powder coated because they will be hard to keep from corroding without removing them.







The upper lights are Lucas reproductions with original Lucas beehive lens. The Lucas lights came with flat lenses, but I thought the beehives might look a little better. I have some LED conversion bulbs from Rodworx for them. I didn’t really like the idea of having any Lucas parts on the car considering how poorly anything made by them holds up. However, they are the only lights that really look correct and they are just a simple light socket. The way the lens is retained is very strange, though. The lens has a lip around the base and the socket has a rubber gasket with a groove that the lip on the chrome trim ring fits into. No screws are used, except to mount the socket to the car. You have to very carefully work the lens base into the gasket. Kind of weird, but I guess it woks. I also mounted them with custom aluminum adapters.







The bumperettes are the same 59 Sprite parts that are on the front. I should add that I shortened the body mounts front and rear that the bumpers attach to so that they would tuck in as tight as practical.

The exhaust tips are no name parts that I picked up at a swap meet several years ago. I kind of went for the XKE look with the narrow spaced tips.

The license is mounted on a spring loaded fold-down mount to give access to the trailer hitch. I don’t actually plan on towing a trailer much, but I do have future plans to build a removable trunk mounted luggage rack. They were a common accessory for British sports cars. I plan to have a couple of tubes run down to a removable insert in the hitch for support. Gotta get this thing on the road before I worry about that type of thing, though.





When it all comes together, this what you get.

I like the lights you've chosen. A much better "fit" with the whole scheme of the car.

Now.... about that rear license plate...… LOL..

Hey, not much to say. Dale was my guy. Liked Tony Stewart, too. Really loved to watch a good NASCAR race back when Earnhardt was alive. I feel fortunate that I got to see Dale race at Talladega. Between his death and NASCAR'S car of tommorrow and allowing Toyota to invent a push rod V8 just for their money, I have lost interest. Shame too, I was a fan since my grandfather was building stock cars. The sport is just too gentrified now.. I might as well watch Fomula 1.

Originally Posted by Hotrod46

Hey, not much to say. Dale was my guy. Liked Tony Stewart, too. Really loved to watch a good NASCAR race back when Earnhardt was alive. I feel fortunate that I got to see Dale race at Talladega. Between his death and NASCAR'S car of tommorrow and allowing Toyota to invent a push rod V8 just for their money, I have lost interest. Shame too, I was a fan since my grandfather was building stock cars. The sport is just too gentrified now.. I might as well watch Fomula 1.

I think many guys "our age" feel the same. And it seems the more "they interfere" in an effort of equality. It just stifles the overall effect. And it is still true, no matter what venue you watch, speed costs money, how fast can you afford to go? The small guy is still always the small ( slow) guy. I will tune in to NASCAR just to catch the last 30 or so laps. Same with NHRA, I may watch - but I have no real involvement anymore. I much prefer to watch the sportsmen races, a lot more relate-able. Another thing that is still true, I just cannot enjoy the big 3 sports. Football / Baseball / Basketball. there's just to many self centered cry babies in there.

bee hives are cool!

IMHO. nascar lost most of it's credibility when they effectively banned the Hemi and for sure when they tried to blame Bill Simpson for earnhardts's death. If you remember nascar backed off rather abruptly when Simpson threatened to sue. Sure woke up the bean counters.
NHRA started going down when they wouldn't let The Winged Express run in Top Fuel at the 65 Winternationals. He qualified for the field, but the limp d++cks in Top Fuel refused to race him. Then they let Ohio george run the Malco mustang in AA/GS instead of AA/MP where it belonged.
BTW, I flagged ole george a few times in 59 and he was an a++hat of the first degree.

Thanks for the comments and kind words. Even the off topic ones, keeps things lively!

The doors were the last bit of body work and modification that I tackled and this was a task I had been dreading. The car builder and Classic Roadsters managed to throw me an unexpected curve here, too.

When I got the car, I saw that the door gaskets had been glued on with gobs of black silicone. I knew all that mess was going to have to come off. This turned out to be a job with a capital “J”.

No wire brush would touch it until it was mostly scraped off by hand and there were large gaps between the door skin and inner door section! All these gaps had been literally pumped full of silicone.

The only tool I could find that would reliably remove it, and I tried everything I could find or buy, was a small flat blade screwdriver. With this I could slowly work my way around the door and once 95% was removed, I could switch to a fine wire brush in my die grinder. By varying the speed of the grinder, I could control the stiffness of the brush using centrifugal force. Slow speed and the brush would work it’s way into the small nooks and crannies. High speed and it would stiffen up for really stuck on chunks, but it wouldn’t even begin to remove it unless I had most of the big stuff removed.

The silicone had been put over the raw fiberglass and it was stuck in the fibers. The brush would get rough enough to grind off a little of the glass to strip the black mess off. At times I had to use a hooked pick to reach under the overlapping parts and drag out hidden bits. I even found places where they had smeared silicone over what looks like sanding dust! Here are a few shots of the job, which took hours of painstaking work.

Lot’s of silicone!





The tool and technique. The pink stuff is actually gel coat dust that just got siliconed over. Such a quality builder!





Eventually, I got it all off, but made a bad discovery. When CR glued the inner and outer passenger door together, they laid down a single thickness of mat and resin on the door skin. They roughed up the mating surface on the door inner with a grinder and stuck the two pieces together. Trouble was, the parts didn’t match up well in the contours. They were only touching in about 3 small places. The rest of the door skin was literally held on by the silicone the car builder used! I stuck a screwdriver between the parts and just popped them apart. What they did would have worked ok if they had just prefit thicker sections of mat in the areas that didn’t mate up. The driver door parts mated much better and I couldn’t separate them at all without tearing the fiberglass, as it should be.

Look at the size of these gaps. This is why the bonding scheme they used didn’t work.





This is the single layer of mat and resin they attempted to use. The whitish spot is one of the only spots that was actually stuck together.



I cleaned the two parts well and rebonded them with Lord Fusor T21 epoxy for SMC and fiberglass. Luckily, screws had been driven between the upper section of both parts and I was able to use those holes to locate the halves back in the same place (hopefully). Otherwise, I am going to have to spend a lot of time realigning the doors during body reassembly. I drilled alignment holes in everything before I disassembled the car so everything would go back in place easily.

Wow, just hasn't been an easy road, has it?

You are so right, 34. I think its going to be a good car when I'm done, but it has fought me the whole way. I guess nothing worth having comes easy. Boy, that statement is sure trying to make lemonade out of lemons!!!

Well.. if it was easy, we'd all be doin' it , right? LOL.

Yeah, 34, ain't it the truth!!

Next, I faired out the seams that had been covered in silicone. I filled them with Upol short strand fiberglass filler. This is the first time I have used this brand and I can say that it is very smooth and creamy. The glass strands are milled very short and don’t interfere with spreading like some of the stuff I’ve used in the past. It was creamy enough that I was able to force it between the inner and outer door halves where there were small gaps. This should act as a glue to further bond the parts together and it will stabilize the two parts so that stress and vibration don’t shake the two sections apart.

Getting all the seams smoothed out took a couple of days for both doors, but they look much better now with all that nasty silicone gone and once they are painted, they should look presentable! I did sand through the gelcoat in several places, but there really wasn’t much way to avoid that. The flanges on the inner doors were very thin lay ups, unlike just about every other part on this body. Most of the body is very heavy fiberglass. The SP epoxy primer I’m using can be used over raw glass and they claim it’s more durable than gel coat. Guess I’ll be putting that to the test since it would be difficult to gel coat all of it.





There were also a few gel coat repairs on the lower corners.






This was a gouged out area where a screw in the door jam area had been wearing on the door because the gaps were too tight. There was a ¼” deep groove here. I built it up with short strand fiberglass filler.




One of the corners in the lock area was completely missing. The layup was very, very thin in this area. I think it was pretty much just gel coat and it cracked out. I built up and reshaped the corner with fiberglass filler. Once the epoxy primer goes on, I don’t think you will ever know unless you look inside the door.



I did get to use a new tool I bought a few months ago, but haven’t used until now. That is a Harbor Freight “Baxter” brand air powered detail belt sander. Man, this thing was a real time saver for working the seams. It was controllable enough that I could get the contours almost finished before switching to hand sanding for the final finish. I would say it knocked at least a day off of this job. The best part is that it worked exactly as it was supposed to. The air motor is more than powerful enough and the belt tracked well. It never threw a belt the whole time I used it. This is one of the new Harbor Freight “improved” brands. I can say that the one I got is far, far superior to the old Chicago Pneumatic stuff, but costs twice as much, too.

That's good news on the tooling. Harbor Fright seems to be stepping up their quality in a few areas. (and no.. I spelled it the way I intended!)
I think most of us don't mind spending some extra dollars to get a product that actually works as intended.
So far the only thing I get there is blasting media.

I think they saw Craftsman/Sears going downhill and saw a great opportunity to sell decent quality tools in the old Craftsman price range.

I have tried a Chief air saw and a Hercules drill, too (both from HF). They seem to compare very well to some of the bigger names. They are at least as good or better than the old Craftsman stuff. The Hercules drill was a little pricey for HF, but is in their professional line.

They also have several new names in hand tools. Some appear to be direct ripoffs of brands like MAC and ViceGrip. May be off the same assembly line since many, many name brand tools are now made in China.

I do hate buying Chinese stuff because I don't like their politics, but if the American brands are going to move their production to China and layoff American workers, why should I pay them big money? All it does is go in the company pockets and doesn't really help create American jobs. Whether I buy Irwin brand Vice Grips or the HF version, China is still going to get the money. They look and work exactly the same and I can buy twice as many for the same money. If the American companies start losing money because they are selling Chinese made stuff and not providing jobs for Americans, maybe they will move production back here. You have to hit them on the bottom line before they will pay attention.

I really hope that doesn't pi## folks off and I hope it doesn't get flagged as political.