Melbourne, OZ, GT40s and MTBs

[Ryan in Melbourne]

Strewth here we go.

Name - Ryan Love
Age - 40s, thats enough make it stop

Location, inner south eastern suburbs of Melbourne Australia

Occupation, Railway Signalling Engineer. Have worked on jobs in most states of OZ but predominantly its been metro Melbourne.

Hobbies and interests; Well i like riding my Mountain bike when i am able. used to race that when i was younger but realized that i didn't have what it took to get going really fast back in 2005 and haven't raced since. As a junior I raced on the road and velodrome as well. At some stage i would like to have a go at making my own bike frame but that will have to come after the current project. I have a modest shed which i am slowly over filling.

Major tools in the shed; Mig welder, Lathe, Mill, Spot welder, Horizontal Bandsaw, 3d printer

Current project; and predominant reason for joining this forum is a scratch built Ford GT40 replica. I started this probably 5 years back now and have slowly been collecting bits. I have the fiberglass body already and have been collecting tooling along the way to help make it. Some time back, maybe 2 years ago I acquired some copies (not all) of the original hand drawn ford blue prints. These were obviously drawn on plastic transparency sheets and show a few revisions over the time in which they were in development. dates on the drawings range between 64 and 69 i think.

In the last 2 years I have been working on converting what i do have into CAD so that I can then connect the dots using details from the existing plans and photos from original cars. surprise surprise they all seem to differ slightly.
If you want to see more there is more here
https://www.gt40s.com/threads/ryans-...-body-5.46513/

I have been enjoying the project, the process and challenge. Most importantly i am enjoying the journey, meeting new people along the way as well as learning new skills.

This is something (hands on skills) that I hope to be able to pass on to my two kids as they grow up.

Cheers.
Hope to meet some of you down the track. I will have a look around and see what everyone is up to.

Regards Ryan

[galooph]

Welcome aboard, Ryan, sounds like a fun project!

Nice chassis table build, too

[Ryan in Melbourne]

Thanks Dan,
Hasn's seen much use yet as that was done prior to getting the proper plans. its sitting there ready to go.

I had a goal of getting the plans/CAD finished to a point where i could have started the chassis construction by Easter 2020. That time frame has been and gone though thanks to Covid home schooling, working from home and a broken collar bone.

My main reason for joining the forum was to get ideas about how to tackle some of the sheet metal pieces of the chassis. This I probably should have mentioned in the initial post but I forgot as I have just been discharged from the hospital after having a hook plate taken out of my collarbone.

I am a little bit behind on the build diary as i had started to make an MDF template for the green part that forms the top of the dash structure. More to come on that when I can get back out to the shed and get some photos.

PS I was recommended this forum by a gentle sole called Chris, maybe CJ, not sure what his username is. The forum wouldn't let me put that bit in during the registration process as it couldn't find a match for my random string of text.

Cheers
Ryan

[cliffrod]

Welcome to the forum, Ryan. Always great to see a Ford project like yours. I'll be watching.

[metaldahlberg88]

Welcome to the site. Cool project.

[heinke]

Ryan: welcome!

The GT40 sounds like a fun project. I'm scratch building a Lamborghini Miura and you might get some ideas from the build thread: http://www.allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=18058