Nine Month Milestone

Chassis #402 arrived at the end of June, 2012. It was a good time and a good distraction as I had just said good bye to Ripley, my Black Lab, a few weeks earlier. Rips watched me curiously as we worked on both the Porsche and Corvette - never quite sure what was going to happen next (neither was I). Based on my schedule, budget and other obligations this represents nine months of progress on the build since delivery. I split my time between the Northern and Southern Man Caves. Obviously, when I'm down south, the GTM waits patiently for me to return so we can get working on things.

Except for a few things like mounting the running gear, removing and installing the body shell and getting the transaxle into the chassis, I've done everything myself. Oh, there has been grand kid or two that cut wires and play with lights, several neighbors who stopped by to see what was happening, and plenty of other interested folks who wandered in. All this is to say, you can build one of these incredible cars on one side of a double garage in a suburban neighborhood.

I plan to do the final assembly at Southern Man Cave, which is being augmented  with a number of bells and whistles to make jobs like moving engines and transaxles and body shells much easier. The nine months of work is basically weekends and evenings, a significant amount of mumbling to myself, deer in the head lights stares and wandering about the build looking for the tool I just had in my hand.

The major items completed or close to completion are:

• Suspension installed.
• Brake and clutch lines run.
• Fuel system.
• Most of the door internals.
• Non-ECU wiring
• Body work/modification up to primer.
• Transaxle inside the chassis.
• 50% of the sound proofing
• Most coolant lines run.
• Miscellaneous items installed (e.g. side marker, nozzles, vents, HomeLink, Lights)