Davrian Mk3 1968
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:50 am
Hi all,
It's long overdue that i start a build diary here for my davrian, i have been meaning to for a couple of years now, but it's not until recently that i have actually started on her properly. I will copy and paste my build thread here from another forum and will keep it upto date in future.
Around 4 years ago a hear of a Davrian that was for sale locally, so i jumped straight in the car needing to hear nothing else! The car in question was stripped in the mid 80's and has been sat in a loft until it was decided it was in the way, when i pulled up in the car this is what i found.....
A deal was done and a few weeks later i went back and collected her....
Even though it had been totally dry in the loft, the cage had condensated inside resulting in this.....
I think a new cage may be needed! She then went into storage for about a year until i could make enough space for her in the workshop. A few months ago that finally happened......
There is a long road ahead involving remaking pretty much all bodywork. The final plan for the car is for it to be a road car, but as it has a race history i plan to keep it in that style. The front of the car is standard Mk3 but at some stage in it's life the rear has been adapted to a later style, because its wider and as a race car it probably had 8 or 10 inch wide rear wheels. I plan to run 13x10 inch rears and 13x8 inch fronts.
So far i have done a quick bit of cutting and shutting to see how i want the body to finally look. Main changes are to the wheels arches as i wasn't happy with the shape of the lips. Heres how the mods went....
Pretty happy with the front arch, this is only temporary, until i get all the running gear and wheels on then i can line them up properly.
The rear wheel arch will be filled so it is less of a bubble arch and more of a rolled lip. The i decided to see how a vent similar to the 250gto would look....
This bring us upto today, this morning i decided to try some mod sport style corner spoilers and some very over the top front dive plaines, not sure if they will be for road use though?!..
Pretty close, not quite happy with the indicator....
I cut the nose appart so it lines up with the bonnet better, once its bonded up I can then attack the shut lines around the bonnet. I also dropped in a pair of 7 inch headlights I had lying around. To me they look too big and always do on Davrians as they are tiny cars, But withought the surrounds they look much better. I'm also going to make clear covers to go over the headlights with custom chrome surrounds to hopefully really finish the front end off.
I'm also designing up a set of badges to go on the car, just waiting to hear back on a few quotes for having them waterjet cut in alloy. I then want to get them chromed. The first one will be done in 2 sizes, small to go into the wings behind the front wheels and a larger one to go into the front grill. The second badges is to go onto the rear. I will recess it into the fibreglass aswell as the ones in the front wings.
I've also taken the big stepof removing the rear arches as the shutline of my rear end isnt the same as other davrians. Now I just have to bond the wings to the rear and do the returns so it all bolts to the body. In the shed I have a standard mk4 road rear end so I'm using this to make the returns on the car then i'll fit my back to it. It will be useful to have the narrow rear so I don't always have to run the 10 inch wide tires!
Bit more progess on the Davrian today, i have been sanding off all the paint and filler on the rear of the cab so i can sort the returns for th rear end.
The passenger side had lots of layers of paint and a fair thickness of filler. I plan to remover all filler from the car so i can do all the repairs properly, then i will probably etch prime the shell so i can see how it looks, then i'll start with the filler work.
I now have the standard road rear end attatched and ligned up as square as you can on a Davrian. I used a piece of inch bar through both trailing arms so i could get both wheel arches lined up. I then taped up the joins and painted some gel on, hoping to get the retunrs layed up later. You cant see the returns in the picsture so it will make more sense once i take the back back off! but you can see it is all better aligned than in the previous pictures......
I finally got round to laying up the returns on the rear of the cab, but i havent yet taken the back off as i thought i would have a go at finishing up the wheel arches while it was in place. I have also started removing the old paint with a chisel and started to give it a bit of a rub down. I have also fitted some running gear so i can check that everything lines up properly.
As an experiment i layed up a small quick mould off of the rear of the passenger side rear ach. Once it was dry i removed it trimmed it up, then i put it on the front of the drivers rear arch to see how it looked. It looked close enough so i glued the mould in place then gel'd and layed it up from the back. A bit of cooking with the hair dryer and i was able to take the mould off to see how it looked..........
Popped the back off this morning so i could see what the returns are like, even though i havent yet finished the front of the passenger side rear arch. Next i want to refit my original rear end to make sure its all going to work before i finish up the cab. Hoping to have the original rear back on after lunch.
A few pictures of the original back end on the car again, only dropped on for now as i just wanted to see how all the shut lines and returns looked before i finish them on the cab. I now have the road back end on the car so i can finish up the passenger side arch. Im also going to take some moulds off both the rear arch lips so i can transfer the shape to the original rear as it has no returns on them.
Sorry it got a bit pic heavy, but we all like pictures dont we?!
Comments good or bad always appreciated
Cheers
It's long overdue that i start a build diary here for my davrian, i have been meaning to for a couple of years now, but it's not until recently that i have actually started on her properly. I will copy and paste my build thread here from another forum and will keep it upto date in future.
Around 4 years ago a hear of a Davrian that was for sale locally, so i jumped straight in the car needing to hear nothing else! The car in question was stripped in the mid 80's and has been sat in a loft until it was decided it was in the way, when i pulled up in the car this is what i found.....
A deal was done and a few weeks later i went back and collected her....
Even though it had been totally dry in the loft, the cage had condensated inside resulting in this.....
I think a new cage may be needed! She then went into storage for about a year until i could make enough space for her in the workshop. A few months ago that finally happened......
There is a long road ahead involving remaking pretty much all bodywork. The final plan for the car is for it to be a road car, but as it has a race history i plan to keep it in that style. The front of the car is standard Mk3 but at some stage in it's life the rear has been adapted to a later style, because its wider and as a race car it probably had 8 or 10 inch wide rear wheels. I plan to run 13x10 inch rears and 13x8 inch fronts.
So far i have done a quick bit of cutting and shutting to see how i want the body to finally look. Main changes are to the wheels arches as i wasn't happy with the shape of the lips. Heres how the mods went....
Pretty happy with the front arch, this is only temporary, until i get all the running gear and wheels on then i can line them up properly.
The rear wheel arch will be filled so it is less of a bubble arch and more of a rolled lip. The i decided to see how a vent similar to the 250gto would look....
This bring us upto today, this morning i decided to try some mod sport style corner spoilers and some very over the top front dive plaines, not sure if they will be for road use though?!..
Pretty close, not quite happy with the indicator....
I cut the nose appart so it lines up with the bonnet better, once its bonded up I can then attack the shut lines around the bonnet. I also dropped in a pair of 7 inch headlights I had lying around. To me they look too big and always do on Davrians as they are tiny cars, But withought the surrounds they look much better. I'm also going to make clear covers to go over the headlights with custom chrome surrounds to hopefully really finish the front end off.
I'm also designing up a set of badges to go on the car, just waiting to hear back on a few quotes for having them waterjet cut in alloy. I then want to get them chromed. The first one will be done in 2 sizes, small to go into the wings behind the front wheels and a larger one to go into the front grill. The second badges is to go onto the rear. I will recess it into the fibreglass aswell as the ones in the front wings.
I've also taken the big stepof removing the rear arches as the shutline of my rear end isnt the same as other davrians. Now I just have to bond the wings to the rear and do the returns so it all bolts to the body. In the shed I have a standard mk4 road rear end so I'm using this to make the returns on the car then i'll fit my back to it. It will be useful to have the narrow rear so I don't always have to run the 10 inch wide tires!
Bit more progess on the Davrian today, i have been sanding off all the paint and filler on the rear of the cab so i can sort the returns for th rear end.
The passenger side had lots of layers of paint and a fair thickness of filler. I plan to remover all filler from the car so i can do all the repairs properly, then i will probably etch prime the shell so i can see how it looks, then i'll start with the filler work.
I now have the standard road rear end attatched and ligned up as square as you can on a Davrian. I used a piece of inch bar through both trailing arms so i could get both wheel arches lined up. I then taped up the joins and painted some gel on, hoping to get the retunrs layed up later. You cant see the returns in the picsture so it will make more sense once i take the back back off! but you can see it is all better aligned than in the previous pictures......
I finally got round to laying up the returns on the rear of the cab, but i havent yet taken the back off as i thought i would have a go at finishing up the wheel arches while it was in place. I have also started removing the old paint with a chisel and started to give it a bit of a rub down. I have also fitted some running gear so i can check that everything lines up properly.
As an experiment i layed up a small quick mould off of the rear of the passenger side rear ach. Once it was dry i removed it trimmed it up, then i put it on the front of the drivers rear arch to see how it looked. It looked close enough so i glued the mould in place then gel'd and layed it up from the back. A bit of cooking with the hair dryer and i was able to take the mould off to see how it looked..........
Popped the back off this morning so i could see what the returns are like, even though i havent yet finished the front of the passenger side rear arch. Next i want to refit my original rear end to make sure its all going to work before i finish up the cab. Hoping to have the original rear back on after lunch.
A few pictures of the original back end on the car again, only dropped on for now as i just wanted to see how all the shut lines and returns looked before i finish them on the cab. I now have the road back end on the car so i can finish up the passenger side arch. Im also going to take some moulds off both the rear arch lips so i can transfer the shape to the original rear as it has no returns on them.
Sorry it got a bit pic heavy, but we all like pictures dont we?!
Comments good or bad always appreciated
Cheers