R324 GTSR22 update

Since the last update on the R324, things have progressed with the car being fully stripped down to its bare shell with all the parts put away on various shelves and storage sheds at taff*tune. The next task was to clean off the sealant from the underside of the bodyshell and clean up all the seams ready for them to be stitch welded.

Cleaning the seams is not a nice job as it involves burning the sealant to a point where its flakes off with a wire wheel fitted to a small angle grinder. The downside is that this creates a lot of smoke and dust and dirt that hovers around in the air and due to the time of year its bitterly cold making opening the garage door impossible if work is to carry on! So the cleaning and welding was staggered over a series of nights after work.

To make the job easier the shell was rolled onto its side so that one series of seams could be stitched up then it could be rolled onto its other side for the rest to be done. At the moment the final bits of sealant still remain to be cleaned off with the plan being to send the bodyshell off to be sandblasted next week.

Here are a few photos of the car in its various states of welding and cleaning:




Whilst work was being done on the bodyshell some fabrication was finished on the modified front chassis brace to accomodate the relocated bottom radiator outlet pipe. This was done by channelling the brace to allow the radiator outlet to be extended along the brace to gain clearance for a silicone hose to be clamped on during final assembly.



As far as pushing to have the car as light as possible some FRP doors and a bootlid skin were bought in from Japsalon which gives an overall saving of 20kg over the standard or OEM parts.