scratch built Mazzer roadster

Not quite sure what you mean. I HAVE pictures on here of the full body in bare aluminum. Unfortunately, the bonnet is now coated with primer and soon the rest of the body will be protected also. It's not good for the metal to sit open like that. People tend tp touch it and then it's contaminated which can cause paint adhesion problems. It can take quite a bit of sanding to get rid of hand prints on there.

 

Yeah, "saddle" shapes can be a bugger.

I hope your aquaintance is doing well at making airplane parts. Over here, guys who work on planes tend to be under-paid I think (sort of like racecar mechanics) and they've got a lot of licensing issues to deal with. Years ago I was offered a WWII Stearman bi-plane at a really compelling price but I was talked out of buying it because of all the licensing issues and lousy compensation once you have those licenses. I did fly it though - awesome machine. I can imagine flying a Warhawk would be quite a thrill.

Just for the hell of it, I asked for a price and photos of the P40.

 

Hi George,

Some progress has been made on the Mazzer but I've been so crazy buzy with our new building that posting about it just didn't happen.

The cowl, doors and lower sill panels (rocker panels) have been planished and were sprayed with poly-surfacer. The body is now in poly-surfacer from the nose to the backs of the doors, ready for block sanding, primer and finish paint. We just need to do some finish work on the tail, get that in poly and we'll be real close to finally painting it.

In the mean-time: The crankshaft bearings were inspected and plasti-gauged. They were fine so the bottom end went back together and the sump was reinstalled. The front cover and new oil seals were installed as was the water-pump after replacing the seal. The water-pump shaft/bearing assembly was fine and since new ones are apparently no longer available I'm taking a chance with the old one. The cylinders are in great shape too so the short-block is ready for duty. As I've said before: I just want to get a reasonably good engine in the car and build up a monster engine later. I need to get this thing on the road.

I'll try to post some pictures.

Next will be the valve job.

 

We've got the back end of the car in polysurfacer now. We still need to finish detail work on the aluminum skins of the trunk lid and head fairings.
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Thanks for the "wow". Haven't decided on registration yet.

 

Thank you for the compliment on the car - it's much appreciated. People who know me may disagree with you on your second comment though.

 

One of the reasons I got interested in building this car was the sporty components under the QP and the bargain prices for some of the cars. The front suspension, for example, is pretty much the same as on a Pantera. Unfortunately the components were really too light for the heavy QP (problems with premature control-arm bushing deterioration and coil-over shock (damper) failures) but perfect for another sports car.

I haven't decided yet how I'll register the car. I suppose a VIN registry could be interesting.

 

I am just going to go through my suspension from stem to stern. For one of the cars I had ordered the complete suspension set sold in the US -- I was wondering if there are some sensible upgrades that would deal with some of the issues you mention. Anyway, thanks for sharing your journey and I may ask for some more insights along the way![/QUOTE]

QUOTE=William Abraham;140357204]

I've worked on QP IIIs since they were new but we don't see too many anymore. There was a genleman in Tennessee who manufactured urethane suspension bushings for the front suspension but I don't know if he's still doing that. I'll bet urethane bushings for the front control arms on a Pantera will fit.

I see the photos of your new looking front dampers and springs. They might be good but the problem is that the QP III is way too heavy at the front for two coil-overs.

You're welcome to ask questions but I've probably lost a few QP III brain cells over time. The factory service manual is not bad for repair information but the electricals will drive you mad. The car has 3 separate fuse boxes distributed around the car. I remember wondering what a particular black box did, checked the wiring diagram only to find the word "device".

 

Were working on the last aluminum body panels for the back end of the car, doing the final smoothing before we spray them with polysurfacer. Pictured is the bottom of the fuel-tank-cover/head-fairing assembly. We also did a little welding on it to fill a couple of gaps where it meets the back of the "trunk" opening and to repair a crack at the front where it rests on the roll-over bar structure.

The car, in the back-ground, is still sitting on a half-lift which explains why the wheels sit low in the arches.

Also pictured is the "trunk lid" (there really is no trunk to cary things although I guess I could hang some sort of a basket in there). We need to do some more work on the hand made louvers to make them more even but the skin looks pretty good. I also welded a bead along the right side to build it out and inprove the gap between the lid and the right head fairing. The fact that the lid is asymmetric is very evident in these photos. The whole car is asymmetric. The engine is off-set to the right and so is the driver seat so the whole body follows that theme.

We ordered leather samples yesterday. It's time to get back to the interior parts. We also need to make molds off of the aluminum front valence pieces so they can be copied in fiberglass.
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Since the car has a reletively short wheel base (96") and the engine is shoved back so far in the chassis, the drive-shaft (prop-shaft) is by necessity quite short. When laying out the drive-train it made sense to line the engine up with the differential pinion shaft which is off-set to the right. Moving the engine to the right also makes a little more room in the driver's footwell which is a little cramped with the engine moved so far back. To stay lined up with the pedals, the driver's seat was also moved to the right which affected the position of the driver's roll-over bar and head fairing.

The passenger side foot-well is a little more cramped but not too bad and passengers have the option of placing their feet on the wider parts of the floor a little closer to their seat.

The bulge in the bonnet, which hugs the engine pretty closely, is also off-set to the right. Away from the center section of the car, the body is symetrical again.

 

On a different front, here are some engine related photos. For now we disassembled, inspected and reassembled the engine block and will be putting the engine back together as a basically stock unit. We already rebuilt and installed the water pump. Now we're rebuilding the carburetors and distributor and had a bunch of external engine hardware plated with electroless nickel instead of the yellow chromate plating this engine originally came with. Not all of it is picured here. We got rid of the "choke" mechanisms and installed aluminum block-off plates. As soon as I can find some time I'll do a valve job on the cylinder heads and get those installed
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