Part 10 - The Cornish Unipower GT rebuild - Onwards towards paint

Guy continues his rebuild Blog -

Lots more on the body to follow as it’s soon door and windscreen surround time and just a few more other items. Fan brackets and rad are still causing problems but nothing we can’t handle, more later.

You will have seen in parts 8 and 9 of the blog, pics of the suspension that I had overhauled to include all the uprights, wishbones, backplates etc, newly made radius rods, machined correct diameter washers, assembled correct grade bolts using a good selection of original factory fixings here too, painted everything and fitted them all. I had decided, in the interests of originality that the radius rods would be fitted with normal factory spec rubber ends but bushes in the wishbones would remain hard spec. The rear went together well, helped by copper grease, of course. Whilst the factory did not fit Minifin rear brake drums as standard, I was offered a brand new pair and have fitted them. Handbrake cables are next to be installed together, with newly made and correct spec flexible hydraulic pipes to each backplate and lastly, the overhauled driveshafts.

Front final assembly…holes were made in the body above the damper and spring turrets for clearance and access, as were holes in the upper footwell for access to the top radius rod ends. I machined stepped spacers for top arms together with lovely original new factory 6” pivot bolts. Lucky to have those! All were assembled with lots of copper grease! But before all this, the new steering rack was mounted (LHD quick rack as per factory). Quite a fiddly operation but we managed.

Then an original spec electric SU fuel pump was installed with new shiny bracket and new E10 fuel compliant (or resistant!) hoses throughout.

All this made the car a rolling, steering, chassis for the first time in quite a while. Ready to roll to the paint shop in fact, where the doors, window surrounds, screen surround and clam shell are all now being fettled, gaps set, shut lines done and all primed before final paint. As you can see in pics a huge effort is going into getting the finish to as good as you can get.

GM