Dilemmas ?

[jps]

A lot of good points here. I was in a good financial position myself when I started as I had a chunk of money saved already (mainly as I thought i'd be buying a kit. As it was I bought an 'abandoned project' from someone else - they'd got as far as rolling chassis and had a pile of bits, some of which have turned out to be spare (as you have discovered to your benefit!), so even some bits of the package I bought are being sold to fund the build.

I also looked at the cost before I really started - as I wanted to be honest with the missus about how much of of our cash was going to end up in the car. £250 is a figure from the 1980s, and unless you are somehow in a position where you can use your contacts to make serious savings (a lot of guys seem to work in a field that allows them to get work done free or cheaply - or use tools someone else is paying for, draw on friends who can help them out with materials or - let's be honest - just pinch stuff from work!) I don't think it's off the wall to say that somewhere approaching £5-7k is a good ballpark even for a basic build OTR.

Ideas like 'make your own fibreglass parts' sound good on paper - but small quantities of materials are more expensive and the learning process will probably lead to rejects - so be careful of false economies. Sometimes you are better off paying for expertise & quality. Same applies to tools as Skov has said.

Phil is spot on about effective buying - and effective planning COULD help you to nibble some costs away. Also, retail costs on some items are frankly a joke in my eyes (nuts and bolts are a prime example) so if you can find ways to get stuff like that 'under the counter' or whatever savings are there to be had. It also seems like some guys get a bit 'Del Boy' to fund their builds - i.e. organise 'group buys' and balance it so that they end up getting a good deal for what they need.

Stot is bang on too - think 'Locost' wherever you can if you really want to save money - but accept that may mean delving about in skips and dragging rubbish off the street...

Enochs point about donor parts is also SO true. I could be builidng with Team Dynamics wheels c. £450 for 4. A lot of guys do - but I managed to get some Ford 'baby Cosworth' alloys for £40 for 4. £410 is a big difference! I won't need the wheels for months if not years yet - but the key is to buy when it's cheap - not when you need it.

If you want to finish the build you will - saving up the cash might just be the thing that dictates how long it takes!

[twinturbo]

At the end of the day I have to finish, it's worth less in parts than as a whole.

It would have been more sensible to save and buy a used Tiger or MK... But then again spending that sort of money on buying a toy is less sensible than spending it on a hobby and ending up in a similar place ( or is it??? )

TT

[skov]

Originally Posted by twinturbo

At the end of the day I have to finish, it's worth less in parts than as a whole.

It would have been more sensible to save and buy a used Tiger or MK... But then again spending that sort of money on buying a toy is less sensible than spending it on a hobby and ending up in a similar place ( or is it??? )

TT

Good point about it being a hobby TT. That's the way I've tended to think about it.
There's no way I could justify spending 5 grand on a toy... Spending £40 a week on a hobby isn't completely unreasonable though.

[CTWV50]

Originally Posted by skov

Good point about it being a hobby TT. That's the way I've tended to think about it.
There's no way I could justify spending 5 grand on a toy... Spending £40 a week on a hobby isn't completely unreasonable though.

It must be this way for you to finish I think. If you want a Lotus 7 type vehicle it would be cheaper to buy a used one than build one. I view a haynes as a challenge not as a way of owning a toy, that's just a bonus. Getting the money together can be as big a challenge though! In this regard I don't think I could of got this far without being an eBay seller. I'm currently a Top Rated Power Seller after 2 years of it.

[alga]

I bought 4 8'x4' sheets of aluminium: 2 mm half-hard for the floor and tank, 3 sheets of soft 1 mm 1050 for the panels. They cost me around £150 altogether. Making ali panels is fun and easy, and even though I've made mistakes, they're not very visible. In the book Chris recommends not bending the side panel where the chassis breaks towards the nose, just letting the sheet finds its own line. I read that advice after I've already bent mine:



I was quite upset thinking I've ruined the looks of the car for good. But in fact even with the far-from-perfect side panels, and the horrid crumbling GRP the car is still turns heads and looks great generally.



Here's my cutting plan for the thin panels:



Doing your own GRP is definitely a cost saving measure. The materials account for about 20% of the price of commercially made GRP panels. To save time and money, make a one off nose without making a female mould. Laminate glass on the buck, then auto filler and paint.

You can use this plan to make a buck of the size and shape of the Triton/SSC/Gillham nose:

http://locost.lt/download/file.php?id=385

25 mm squares, the black lines correspond to 20 mm slices, the red dotted ones are 50 mm apart. I have the vector version somewhere, too. I used the cheapest polystyrene foam and some plaster putty compound on top to protect the foam from the styrene in the resin.

[Talonmotorsport]

Originally Posted by alga

Is a push start required for all motor sport in Lithuania or just in hill climbs to make it more of a challenge?

[jason 82]

Thanks for your help & advice everybody, sometimes this thing can hit you like a whirl wind. Enjoying the build so far, not quite sure about the gearbox tunnel, the mx5 one is very wide at the rear, may have to avoid those full English breakfasts from now on, might get my fat ass wedged and need a hoist to tug me back out !

[K4KEV]

thats the spirit Jase...gud on yer

[alga]

Originally Posted by Talonmotorsport

Is a push start required for all motor sport in Lithuania or just in hill climbs to make it more of a challenge?

Just adjusting the El Cheapo cam in the printed rollbar bracket:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:108898 :-)

[Enoch]

There are 2 things missing in your photo Albert - a driver and a pair of roller skates