1970 Ginetta G15

Itchy's G32 has always had an issue of the modified Fiesta door catching the bodywork due to the profile of the frame not quite matching the body. Door shuts and panel gaps on low production glass fibre cars are never the greatest but the annoyance on this car is that the fit is "good clearance " everywhere except upper top corner where the flex in the body chassis end up with the door chipping paint from the body. With the next stage of restoration being paint it would be annoying to get the body in paint only for the first bump in the road to remove large chunks of paint.

Today I was invited to assist in seeing what we could do with getting a more even panel gap.

Where we are starting. Drew a few lines to see how much we need to remove and where - as is ever the case with these things its either much more or much less than you think.

















Armed with the latest toy I lined up for action whilst we took bets on which direction it would all spring when the cut was completed.




The blade is about 0.75mm and went through Fords finest tinfoil like a knife through - Jelly..... The door frame was wobbling all over the place trying resist the saw teeth. Lovely cut though. The result being that we were about 0.5mm away from perfect








Being 0.5mm away from perfect some gentle work with a flap wheel provided us with a frame about as good as it was ever going to be.








We then broke out the old Faithfull Clarke 100E and dialled it in for some tacks - No pictures of the 8mm perfectly round hole it blew in the stretched to oblivion Ford tin foil on the top of that curve - you could not have drilled a more perfect hole. I threw some more tacks on leaving the hole to be filled another day.










All in all we were pretty chuffed with how it turned out from a 1.25mm slice - Itchy will now refit all the glass and window reg's to make sure its all good prior to taking all apart again and removing the door for full welding. Not yet settled if it will be completed with £000,s of TIG equip or £0's of Clarke - each will do the job adequately!

All good.

A picture of the hole that I blew in the Ford tin foil going for a tack that was more than the steel could take.






I took a few more pictures of adding in bits of weld here and there and filling up the hole above but those kind of spot fill tack welds in such small areas are just ugly. These sorts of ugly weld trying to weld corrosion in a area prior cut and shut in a window slider channel.




Now grind that down....


It took three visits in all to get the job completed - More fine grinding in hard to reach places with carbides and rolls - PITA - Removing as much corrosion as we could tack-welding in slivers of steel 25mm x 5mm to deal with those sorts of tiny little break out corrosion blisters you find around door seals and trim. Building up edges that just have rusted away by a couple of mm.





Now ready for its cosmetic work.


No work on anything else as storms Arwen - Barra have really stalled things. Still a a load garden work to do and a neighbours tree to get removed from off my shed... I was hoping that today would be a decent day to get a few things done but overnight man-flu appears to have developed so it will be Lemsip and the GP for me.

G21(M) gets collected by its new owner tomorrow morning - bittersweet for the seller who does not get to see his vision realised - but not being able to get in and out of low cars does not leave much in the way of options - And the G21 is low and he lowered the seat in the chassis by an extra 2" for increased head room. New owner leapt at the chance to get hold of a G21 for a retirement project so its going from one barn straight into another.

For me it's out of the barn and away and although it was a paying project it frees up more of my time to spend on the two extra G15 projects that have recently arrived and maybe even to get going on the Strato's that desperately needs to get progressed.

So what of BOY in the last 12 months - not a huge amount as the content covering the car in this thread over the past 12 months testifies. It is however up the barn under cover so it does provide more opportunity to go and work on it as it's permanently in the dry now.


This week has been mainly listening to Sublime - another sad tale of talent lost.



And a load of 50's Doo Wop ! which was led to by me remembering a picture disc that I had from Street Machine when picture discs were a thing.

There was a full set of them but I only recall this one

Which had the Earls - Remember Then



Not much to do but relax kicking back listening to music waiting for it to be less - wet and damp

Being the new owner of the G21(M), it’s now in deepest Norfolk, awaiting restoration. The previous owner had a great vision with this car and I plan to continue develop it and get it finished, but it may take a while. I’m still trying to recommission my G15, as well as other projects
Regards,
Andy

G15's - My old mate with #13 sent me a drawing before Xmas of a couple of parts he wanted so today I got on with them - There was no urgent need before Xmas and there should be no requirement for them for a couple of months whilst he recovers from a heart valve operation and a few other tasks on his ticker that required the use of connecting tubes raided from other parts of his hydraulics.

Done for when he needs them

I'll have the heater running first thing, though we'll lose some heat getting the welder in.

I'll hook up the laptop to the stereo and go searching on YouTube -anything to help! :-)

Here is a guy that loves his G15 - very popular in Japan.

This just tickled me - He's just picked up a takeaway

While I’m sure the future is for PVC and Card composite roll bars we’re not quite there yet!






I always knew you were good Darkspeed, but stone the crows it's chuffing hard making up those cross pieces , never having done it before.

That puts the G27 chassis in to a whole different perspective

More admiration!🤩




May decide to go for just the one diagonal, but we'll see, and if it's anything like Sunday you'll have it welded before I've made the second pot of Tea (first on arrival - obvs!)

There are some interesting tube junctions on that chassis.....





However I will say that working with 1" dia x 16SWG is easier than 1 1/2" dia 12SWG