Hi all

Been lurking for a while.

Just about to start a haynes type car but my question is, presuming I am a competent mechanic but beginner welder how long would you think it will take to build? Ie hours?

A few questions first....


Are you buying a pre cut set of chassis parts to weld together?

Do you have the necessary tools already or will you have to stop and buy them?

Are you working alone on the project (helpers can or can't speed things up)?

Do you have suitable workspace available at home or will you have to travel to it?


I ask out of interest as I built an MK Indy kit. Started building in my parents garage, but live 13 miles away so travel to and from took up some time. My dad restores cars as a hobby so I had good access to tools and materials (brake pipe flairing tools etc.). All these little factors can play a significant factor in how long things take.

Don't let anmy of that put you off though - for me it was massively rewarding both in terms of learning and the end result

I would say it's impossible to even guess in advance.
For example: I never thought it would take me 3 hours to deburr/countersink the 140 odd rivet holes in my floor panel. Or over an hour to get the viscous fan off my Pinto!

Depends massively on the specifics of your build and circumstances.

I would say that you could find (as I have) that things change as you go about doing a job. Fitting my GRP panels for example involved me cutting more off than I expected, so I effectively did the job about 3 times over...

Hi thanks for the response.

I have all the tools apart from a welder which I will be buying prior to commencement.

Got a double garage setup ready to go as a workshop and I'll likely do 95% myself apart from stripping the doner.

I'll either buy a prebuilt chassis from an abandoned project or build it myself. I couldn't find anyone supplying pre cut tube, except one for £600!!

In regards to the build I am looking at the larger chassis 442 if I build it myself. Nothing too fancy but MX5 doner likely woth as much used as possible. Focus on budget not amazing specification. That's for the next one!

My brother was a chief technician for the PSA group and I've been modifying cars for 20 years, mostly Japanese turbocharged stuff

Confident on all of the build apart from the welding.

Before even thinking about welding up the chassis I would suggest you get some tuition or at least have a look at the mig welding forum for instructions , then practice,practice, practice. They will also give advice on a suitable welder ,gas and PPE. Put your location in your profile , there may be someone in your area that can help

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Originally posted by rusty nuts
Before even thinking about welding up the chassis I would suggest you get some tuition or at least have a look at the mig welding forum for instructions , then practice,practice, practice. They will also give advice on a suitable welder ,gas and PPE. Put your location in your profile , there may be someone in your area that can help

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Depends on your personal situation. Any children due? house moves? Marriage/relationship? work? other DIY projects? Money?

A major change in any of those, or a minor changes in a few can result in delays.

I'm on year 7/8 thanks to 5 of those.

If you want to get it moving soonest, I'd still look at getting a chassis made by one of the companys.
If you can budget for it. May save a lot of learning to get you onto the stuff you can do and its not cheating!

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Originally posted by loggyboy
Depends on your personal situation. Any children due? house moves? Marriage/relationship? work? other DIY projects? Money?

A major change in any of those, or a minor changes in a few can result in delays.

I'm on year 7/8 thanks to 5 of those.

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Once upon a time it could be done in a few weekends...

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/december-1963/58/building-lotus-7


If you keep it simple it could be done very quickly. Trouble is we all get carried away. I am on year 16......

I built the basic chassis in one week end. It just took another 10 years to finish it.

Mine is a book Locost, I took 1 year from start to SVA test (passed first time), these cars are never 'finished'. I have been a mechanic and welder-fabricator for more years than I care to remember.
My advice, for what it is worth, is to give yourself a reasonable task for the work session, AND FINISH IT, then walk away until next time, if it takes not as long as you thought - happy days, if it takes a little longer - tough, plan it more carefully next time, do not leave unfinished jobs that you need to finish before getting on with the next bit, recapping the same job wastes so much time. Learn to 'get in the groove', especially where electrics are concerned, until the task in hand is done.
Discipline yourself carefully, and work around available parts as they come in, and make sure you have everything on hand for that particular task.
Above all, during your work session, do not bog yourself down by thinking too far ahead, try to concentrate on the job in hand, there is plenty of time for planning when you are not in the workshop, remember, this is supposed to be fun.
Get hold of a copy of the IVA manual, and work to it, you can't beat it, it will cost you money and gray hair if you try, and it will save you a lot of hassle.
Remember, any problems that may crop up, will have been discussed on this forum, so try to find it, or ask, there are some good lads on here that will help you out.
I hope these ramblings help.

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Originally posted by black fingernail
Mine is a book Locost, I took 1 year from start to SVA test (passed first time), these cars are never 'finished'. I have been a mechanic and welder-fabricator for more years than I care to remember.
My advice, for what it is worth, is to give yourself a reasonable task for the work session, AND FINISH IT, then walk away until next time, if it takes not as long as you thought - happy days, if it takes a little longer - tough, plan it more carefully next time, do not leave unfinished jobs that you need to finish before getting on with the next bit, recapping the same job wastes so much time. Learn to 'get in the groove', especially where electrics are concerned, until the task in hand is done.
Discipline yourself carefully, and work around available parts as they come in, and make sure you have everything on hand for that particular task.
Above all, during your work session, do not bog yourself down by thinking too far ahead, try to concentrate on the job in hand, there is plenty of time for planning when you are not in the workshop, remember, this is supposed to be fun.
Get hold of a copy of the IVA manual, and work to it, you can't beat it, it will cost you money and gray hair if you try, and it will save you a lot of hassle.
Remember, any problems that may crop up, will have been discussed on this forum, so try to find it, or ask, there are some good lads on here that will help you out.
I hope these ramblings help.

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how long would you think it will take to build? Ie hours?

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20 hours a month?
I give it 2 years+ from scratch

I agree with gremlin1234, except for the years bit, (always the negative waves Moriarty).
If you go with a scratch build, you MUST take a lot of care with the frame, everything fixes to it, and must fit properly, no elongating holes etc. take a bit of pride in it, it is for you, after all. This is one of the many reasons for 'unfinished projects' coming up for sale, they have rushed and 'cocked up' the frame, and things don't fit properly.
If you apply a bit of thought, you will save yourself time, for example, the many mounting brackets for the front wishbones and suspension, front and rear etc., can be cut from 50x50 box section, instead of all that tedious bending of flat bar.
A front to back wiring loom can be made out of 12 core trailer cable, keep engine wiring separate from the rest, and use the donor loom for this.
Keep everything simple, avoid weirdness, if you have any reservations about anything, sleep on it, think it through.
You will never be completely satisfied with it, but it is a lot easier to change things AFTER the IVA, general styling and tweaking, wheels, paint, wrapping, green stuff, led's, trick interior, fitted out boot, are things that can take years, so do this with a registered car, not a garage fixture or garden ornament.

Mine took approx 400 hrs over 3 yrs, including donor strip, but I had chassis supplied in the MAC#1 kit.

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Originally posted by black fingernail
Keep everything simple, avoid weirdness, if you have any reservations about anything, sleep on it, think it through.

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Thanks alot!

One option may be to buy a second hand one already on the road (correctly registered) in the end it may cost you considerably less in the end even taking out a loan to pay for it over several years. Ok you would miss out on the building but would get more fun on the road time...

I've been trying to find the Haynes roadster book but I'm not paying amazon money for it. Even tempted to find a pdf download and donate £20 to charity!

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Originally posted by loggyboy
Depends on your personal situation. Any children due? house moves? Marriage/relationship? work? other DIY projects? Money?

A major change in any of those, or a minor changes in a few can result in delays.

I'm on year 7/8 thanks to 5 of those.

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Originally posted by andybird
I've been trying to find the Haynes roadster book but I'm not paying amazon money for it. Even tempted to find a pdf download and donate £20 to charity!

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£50 on amazon!

I paid £15 last time

Ouch last time I looked you could not give them away.

is that the Ron Champion book ?, i have a 2nd edition with no dirty fingerprints on, u2u me if you want it with a decent offer.

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Originally posted by theconrodkid
is that the Ron Champion book ?, i have a 2nd edition with no dirty fingerprints on, u2u me if you want it with a decent offer.

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I did buy a copy and thumbed through it once, I can't remember if I sold it in one of my clear outs. I will have a look when I get home.

the Chris one is much better, car too. The only thing missing is Ron's bull$hit story of how he supposedly spent £250 building his.

These days it's called misleading clickbait...


There's someone on Amazon wanting -

Add to Basket
£136.76+ £2.80 Delivery

WTF!


How about just going here and getting the plans, you don't really need a book to tell you how to build one...

Online plans

[Edited on 15/8/18 by Mr Whippy]

I have a 2007 version of the Chris Gibbs book as I am no longer allowed to weld I will not be using the book. Its yours for a reasonable offer.

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Originally posted by Schrodinger
I have a 2007 version of the Chris Gibbs book as I am no longer allowed to weld I will not be using the book. Its yours for a reasonable offer.

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Its impossible to say. One thing is for sure... whatever timespan you set out double it!

I thought 1,000 hours would be ample for my project, I have done that and more and I'm still nowhere near finished.

Building one to the book will certainly take less time than one with a different engine/gearbox. I have spent atleast 50 hours changing things just to fit in the mercedes engine and running gear.

Best of luck with the build BTW.

Jay

13 years from buying the chassis to IVA. Two engine changes and one gearbox later, it's still work in progress

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Originally posted by 40inches
13 years from buying the chassis to IVA. Two engine changes and one gearbox later, it's still work in progress

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Originally posted by David Jenkins

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Originally posted by 40inches
13 years from buying the chassis to IVA. Two engine changes and one gearbox later, it's still work in progress

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A similar time to me, except I built my chassis!

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whatever it take when you take it outside and see just how small it is... how the hell did that take so long?!?

Another tip to add is while you may keep an accurate tab on what you've spent on it yourself this may well differ from what you inform others you've spent on it

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Originally posted by nick205
Another tip to add is while you may keep an accurate tab on what you've spent on it yourself this may well differ from what you inform others you've spent on it

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I have the gibbs book and also the midlana one. I think the mid engine design approach in the midlana book would work out quite a bit quicker to build.
One of the best bits from midlana is the advice on which bits to buy up front (like the seats, engine/box you intend to use for example) as they often require just a bit more/less width and this is easy to accommodate at the start of the chassis construction, and fiddling around adjusting things after is much more time consuming.
If you go for midlana style car, I think one of the major time savings is that you will almost certainly be able to use the standard ECU/engine loom as the installation space is similar to the original car and that will save quite a bit off time! If you buy your engine/box up front, you can probably use standard induction set up too, depending on bulk, or at least most of it with a bit of flexible pipe and a K+N filter, and since the exhaust isnt really visible you may be able to re-use part of that too. Also you will use the standard box/clutch/starter/alternator ...... so no messing to fit them. Bad point for midlana - you HAVE to build your own chassis, the book seems very expensive but I guess you can count certain savings like not having to buy gearbox to engine adapters etc! The car as built is quite heavy, but then his has huge brakes, a 14 gallon fuel tank, 17" wheels which he admits in the book aren't the best necessarily. It also uses 40*2.5mm tube (the chassis with built in roll cage would be almost exactly twice the weight of a locost without), and it seemed to me that 40*1.8 would do the job just a well, but someone would probably need to do the analysis to see if that was true.

Whichever way you go - have fun!

I dread to think how many hours I spent. If your a very experienced mechanic you can cut the time by half. If you have to research every process and part that will take more time than actually building.

Some good advice above. If i were doing it again I would by a used already IVA'd car and strip back to the chassis. I'd then rebuild to concourse condition correcting every single issue from the chassis up. I think this will save pain and money in the long run. I spent a vast amount ordering bolts because I never seemed to have the right size or length for a particular application.

This s a good read/overview

What you really need is a powder coated chassis with the ally panels already on it that has never been on the road ..... as luck would have it I have a Tiger Avon chassis just like this tucked away for someone like you

Let me know if it may be of interest ?

Cheers,

Ian

So I've gone with a Robin Hood 2b chassis. I know people don't like them but I love the look of the tubular chassis and given my brother and I weigh 40 stone between us the extra size will help. I'm going to convert the front suspesion to a wishbone arrangement away from the sliding pillar and then run a RX8 rear sub and carbon prop with a MX5 engine and box, turbocharged to around 250bhp. Won't be light I guess, around 700 kg but as its track only I don't need too many bells and whistles and I'm willing to take the weight penalty.

Contraversial but gives me a headstart on the bit I feared the most.

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Originally posted by andybird
So I've gone with a Robin Hood 2b chassis. I know people don't like them but I love the look of the tubular chassis and given my brother and I weigh 40 stone between us the extra size will help. I'm going to convert the front suspesion to a wishbone arrangement away from the sliding pillar and then run a RX8 rear sub and carbon prop with a MX5 engine and box, turbocharged to around 250bhp. Won't be light I guess, around 700 kg but as its track only I don't need too many bells and whistles and I'm willing to take the weight penalty.

Contraversial but gives me a headstart on the bit I feared the most.

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I've just got to keep the momentum up or I'll lose interest!

Check out the Robin Hood owners club forum: RHOCaR