Mike's 1964 Elva Courier MkIV Build Thread!

[TurboJake]

Can confirm. Saw them.

[ELVA164]

Fun fact: I know the people selling those, and the middle three links are the guy I got the piece for the Lotus from!

Now stop tempting a boy with no money and a lot of automotive enthusiasm! :)

[flyboyx]

good lord. how can there be so many of those things for sale at the same time? the chick inside the car looks exactly like the car. i thought the pic was from the early 70's but noticed the 2014 plaque on the front. this could be a portlandia skit.

[freeride53]

OT Mike, but thought these would peak your other automotive interests..

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/5029824478.html

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/5029770158.html

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/5027500478.html

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/5020911396.html

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/4975530564.html

[ajhostetter]

Man...that's a lotta glass work. I've only ever played with sailboats...much easier angles to work with.

:up:

[ELVA164]

I got back from Summit Point at midnight, but I still had plenty of energy to do fiberglass work today! I made what I think is quite a bit of progress. I'll post everything as a "before" and "after."

First, I did all of today's work with the car on a rotisserie at this angle:


It made some parts a bit easier and some MUCH harder.

I started with a seam on the passenger pedal box:




I patched up the inside of the panel I'd previously attached:



I filled a couple cracks/cuts around the hood opening:







I also cut a couple patches for holes in the firewall and taped them into place:





I filled a seam between the left inner fender and the nose, as well as a large hole under the nose:



I cleaned up along the firewall and sealed it:



Finally, I fixed two large cracks and a hole in the rear of the car:









Finally, the hood finally fits properly!


We did have to...modify it a little to get it to fit though:


That's all for now, but I felt pretty accomplished!

[ELVA164]

September is coming fast and I've got a lot to do, no time to sit on my laurels!

I got lucky with the fiberglass, no itches!

[2mAn]

Im glad to see this thing coming together! All those fiberglass pics made me itchy.

[ELVA164]

Another small update!
I pulled the axle housing out again and took a quick look at the floating hubs:

Everything came apart pretty easily and I made sure to label the brake backing plates very carefully:

I packed the hubs, set screws, and other bits in two bags for later:

Next, I took at look at where the bottom halves of the radius rod brackets had been cut off. They looked pretty gnarly:


After a bit of grinding:



And one more kicker: Apparently the brake drum wasn't the only cracked piece:


Womp womp.

[TurboJake]

holy fuck! wisconson to cali new york?

Houghton, Mi. In the plow pathfinder no less.

;)

[ELVA164]

Michigan upper peninsula, which is even farther!

[flyboyx]

holy fuck! wisconson to cali new york?

[ELVA164]

did you ever find a way to ship that cortina front end from cali?

Actually, yes. Turbojake was nice enough to drive from his house to Berkeley to our shop to transport it. I honestly don't know how else we could have gotten it with all the issues I encountered. Big :up: to him though!

[flyboyx]

did you ever find a way to ship that cortina front end from cali?

[ELVA164]

i like the "pig" design rear axle. kind of like a mini ford 9". you can probably find a few different ratios to suit different tracks. can you source something with disk brakes? i don't know what kind of speeds you will be racing, but i think those cracks are the result of heat build up.

It is kinda like that, and the Ford Cortina units are even closer :D

This rear came with a number of ratios but the 4.22 should be the best all-rounder for the time being. Most Couriers use 4.55 or even 4.88 rears on short tracks, so I should have a bit of legs on them anyway.

No discs, vintage racing requires original equipment. These cracks are most likely from when the car hit the jersey barrier, as they're on the left-rear drum.