John No way this has been 5 years of planning and prep to get this under way, I have to admit I enjoy working on the cars as much as driving them and in the winter months in the UK our roads are not exactly supercar friendly so spanner time rules. I am hoping to have the rear clam off this week-end, and the engine out next week-end so we are more or less then down to a bare chassis. The interior is now totally out, all glass except the screen is out and the engine is prepped for removal. Just a few rivets to drill out of the rear clam now to get this off, will also make the engine removal a bit easier. I am quite surprised how little time it has actually taken to strip the car down and most of my desing work e.g. pedal box, roof hinges was right first time - all of the stuff is on CAD so easy to tweak and refine anyway.
Unique manifolds with basically refined cherry bomb silencers. The single pipe exhaust on the car at the moment is very heavy, I would estimate somewhere around 15kg. The foskers car seems to have a stock 4 tailpipe system.
Not quite (see attached), the yellow car did have some michelotto parts, I think it sold earlier this year for about 85k gbp. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Engine now ready to come out, drivehshafts taken off, the diff end required that 4 of the nuts were cut, after shearing one 8mm hex bit! The wheel ends which I expected to be bad were actually ok. RH fuel tank out, just to get at the bolts that secure the body to the sill, LH tank tomorrow. Rear manifold and alternater also taken off just to get as much stuff out of the way for engine removal. I have also drawn up the bulkhead panels so these can be laser cut. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
There is a little tidying up to do on the CAD but more or less there, dry sump tank also drawn up, just a few brackets to finish up then off to be laser cut! Hopefully rear body off this week, just cutting through all the adhesive gunk and then should be able to lift off. The number of rivets, glue and bolts they used to secure the rear body was excessive!
Hi Simon, fabulous project! I am totally intrigued by the Michelotto cars, and love what you are doing. Supposedly the Italian dentist/model Ferrari collector Miki Bellagarda has been working on a book on the Michelotto Gr.B and Gr.IV rallycars, but I'm not sure if anything has ever been published so far. Do you happen to know where chassis #18847 is? It's on of the 4(?) Gr.B cars. Used to race in Valentino livery. The only (vague) lead on that car was given to me by Christiano Michelotto himself. I visited his workshop in Padova twice with a friend who was having his Michelotto built 360GTC restored there. He mentioned that the car might be in the hands of Robs Lamplough, but I've never been able to verify this. Anyway, keep up the fantastic work, and thanks for sharing! Kind regards, Mick
Rear clip now off, a far tougher job than expected with all the rivets, glue etc. Also the rear clip with the steel in is surprisingly heavy, the new one is over half the weight and probably more. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
No, the car was originally Galio, the resin was a pinkish colour from the factory and the rear clip has been off before hence the red primer. I guess in total it was near 4 hours to get the thing off, the RH side was a real pain with the blanking plate behind the louvres.
That looks like quite a job removing that rear panel! So the glass cars secure those panels with glue and rivets so I assume the steel counterparts are all welded??
Not quite sure how the steel cars are put together, this certainly was not quite the quick job envisaged. Still access is now great to the engine bay, can see why the rally cars had removable clips.
The primers were a reddish orange color. These original 'glass parts should be worth a fortune? Interesting about the weight, as an old friend always maintained the 'glass was THICK and negated a large amount of supposed material savings, as these were street cars and they feared cracking.
Yep the glass is very thick in places, the rear weight though I think is from the steel support frame for the trunk floor, bumper tubes and the frame around the rear lamps.
I'm loving these pictures, the last two will be instructive to my Body Shop as to "why" I'm having them fix where someone blended the rear pillar, solid into the fender. It cracked, of course, as it needs a flex sealant there!!
There was no sealant between the rear clip and the roof section when I took it to pieces. I believe this was one of the identifiers between a glass and steel car?
Sorry, but this really makes me sad...could do the same with any other 308. I only see a loss here. Still, I hope it turns out perfectly. Ciao!
