BODY

Gulp....where to start?

Getting the body on the chassis is actually possible by two blokes but it is fairly heavy for sure, so it's probably not best to ask your Grandad to help. However, given the choice, it would be ideal to have someone on each corner. The rear of the body needs to hook under the rads before the front can go down, so you sort of have to approach the chassis from behind with the front of the body poking up. Once on, the main area that is likely to need work will be aound the front wheelarch/boot. I found that my wheel arches were holding the front of the body off, so they needed to be trimmed, but not by much. I didn't need to do anything to the front of the boot, as the body was a good few inches away from the edge as it was.

You will know when the body is sitting down properly as the front wheelarches will rest on the door hinge mountings and the rear will sit on the 2 top chassis rails that run down each side. Once the body is sitting down properly you need to check it's OK left to right. Fit the wheels and measure the tyre to arch clearance. I did this by holding a spirit level against the top of the wheelarch and, with it being held vertical, used a ruler to measure from the sidewall to the spirit level. The front was just 2mm out, the rear 4mm. 4mm is right on the edge of being too much but I can live with it. So, I was fairly lucky really. I've heard of some Countach copies being 20mm out which is a pain to rectify.

You will probably find that the side sills do not meet the chassis at all, except at the very front and very rear. DO NOT affix the sills until the doors are fully fitted, as you may need to pull the sill in our out to meet the bottom of the door. As for the rest of the body, the rear is held by bonding all the way down the chassis rails, the front by fibreglassing/bonding to the front boot. I also put a bit of SikaFlex where the body meets at a couple of points on the front windscreen pillars and where the body sits on the rear bulhead shoulders. Obviously these minimalistic areas won't do anything to actually hold the body down but it should help to reduce any squeaks or rattles when on the move. Once you have done this, proceed to fit the doors.

Once EVERYTHING is prefitted one of the last jobs you can do on the car before going to the bodyshop is to fibreglass the side sills to the chassis and make some blanking plates to seal the cabin from the engine bay. This is the area either side of the main bulkhead panel up to the shell itself.

Glassing the sills is fairly straightfoward- it doesn't need to be overly pretty as it will be totally unseen from within the car (the whole sill gets pumped full of expanding foam) and the outside will be painted with underseal. Just work your way from one end to the other, laying down pre-cut strips. Don't forget to also seal the front arch to body area either. Obviously, what you are trying to do is totally seal the cabin from the outside. Bearing in mind that the glassfibre is only really there to stop the foam from falling out when filled (as opposed to adding any structural integrity) I decided that two layers of glassfibre would be enough.

Once thats done, you then need to seal the cabin from the engine bay, at the sides when the body does not meet the main bulkhead. I looked and looked at how I was actually going to do this, and only after lots of thinking I decided to make some templates from cardboard then trace them onto hardboard. I decided not to create the panels from scratch in hardboard as the problem is that much trimming is needed to get the correct shape, and you're working in a confined area as it is. Using cardboard made the job much easier then I just cut the final panels out of the board using a jigsaw. Don't be too concerned about getting a perfect fit to the body as you will be glassing both sides anyway. The aim is just to make something that seals most of the gap so that you actually have something to glass over. Before glassing, I held the panels in place by using silicone around the edges. Once all done, paint the area with black paint to make good.

After all that, you then need to make something to seal the inner sill to the body/chassis. Parallel give you some untrimmed fibreglass panels to do this but I decided that they would fit nicely to the centre console tunnel. So, I used hardboard again. Getting the shape takes a while but at least you're not confined. Once you've made one panel you can just trace it onto another piece of board for the other side. Affix it to the chassis only. You do not need to seal it to the body as your aim is really only to create a 'box' which you will be filling with foam. Besides, leaving the top edge open means you can see just how much foam you are putting in there. When it reaches the top, you're done. I also put a bit of leftover foam on the inner side of the hardwood too. Better than throwing it away.

Side sill after being 'foamed'

Another are that needs sealing is where the body meets the chassis at the bottom of the windscreen. I put fibreglass mat all the way along to seal it off but mainly just to hold the foam that I filled the cavity with. The pic above shows the area before I trimmed it up with a breadknife.

Below are some images of the car in the bodyshop, prior to having any prep work done. Note that the door panel gaps are not correct as the hinges were not bolted in the pictures.

Below are some pics after some intial prep work......you can get an idea how much work is starting to be needed.....
The two worst areas were the top edge of the drivers door and the rear engine lid. Both were not anywhere near their respective body edges. The divers door also needed building up on the front bottom edge to meet the body. The bonnet also needs to be filled, as well as the roof. Basically, every panel needs work. And yes, all the grey areas shown below ARE filler, not from sanding down the gel-coat. You can imagine how rough a finished article would be without this degree of prep work...

Below are some pics once the filler-primer has been sprayed: This needs to be done as normal primer will not be sufficient to cover the surface imperfections. Once the filler-primer has been sanded down the 'regular' primer can be applied.

Right from the start I wanted to paint the car yellow but wasn't keen on the original Lamborghini Superfly yellow. I thought it was too dark and 'muddy' so I had a long look through some swatches at the bodyshop and came accross a Nissan colour which was nice and bright without being on the 'outrageous' side. Right up until the car was in the bodyshop I was set on this colour but I went to the Stoneleigh kitcar in May 2003 and saw a car on the Parallel stand that blew me away (pics here). It was painted in pearl metallic orange and from that point I decided that I MUST have the same, but in yellow. So, the Nissan colour was scapped (luckily the car was only still at the prep stage) and I told the body shop that it must go Lamborghini Giallo Orion, an original colour which was just that: pearl metallic yellow. Of course the price went up (again) but I just fell in love with it so it had to be. There are a few pics of the colour here.

'FAKING IT'...

A little touch that I saw on Parallels orange demonstrator at Stoneleigh was that they had carefully cut a groove with a Dremmel along the door shuts. This sounds like butchery but the impression it gives is actually quite amazing. The idea is to try and make it look like the original (surprisingly) whereby the rear wings and side sills are actually bolted to the chassis, with exposed bolts. I'm not sure I like the 'exposed' thing personally but seeing as it made it look a lot more original I went for it. Naz at Parallel supplied me with a card template from an original car which I just traced around with black marker pen before (very) carefully following the line with a small cutting tool, going deeper with each pass. Once I was happy with the depth and width of the groove (it's not got to be exact) I then drilled and tapped the body to accept the pan-head flanged stainless steel allen key bolts. Again, the template was marked by Naz as to where they should go so the process was made much easier. The job took around 3 hours overall and considering ther minimal cost (£3 for 10 bolts) I think it's probably the single most cost-effective part of the build. The work can be carried out at pretty much any stage, as long as it's before the final paint coat is applied. I did mine whilst it was still at the primer stage.

Below left: Parallels orange GTR. Below right: my attempt at 'faking it'.

THE NEXT STAGE....

These pictures were taken after the final coat of primer had been applied. Note that the sprayer has applied a light dusting of black paint which is done so they can see where they sand down prior to applying the final top coats. Nearly there now...

AND THE FINISHED JOB....!

These pictures were taken not long after I got the body back. Various pieces are missing or not aligned but I thought I'd post them anyway as it will still be a while yet before the car is finished. I will not put any more pictures on this page until the car is fully fitted up and on it's wheels.

BELOW: Genuine car on left.........replica on right.......or maybe the other way around....!

A few more pics wheich were taken nearer towards the end of the build (13/06/04) when I finally got the car back on it's feet when I did the initial wheel alignment. The glass was still yet to be fitted, and the mirrors hadn't been painted.

FURTHER PICS WILL NOW BE PLACED IN THE 'COMPLETED CAR GALLERY'

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