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Mike's 1964 Elva Courier MkIV Build Thread!

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dougie said:
Nice progress, have you decided on a color yet.
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Thanks, I'm really excited about how much is happening! No final decisions on color, but I'm beginning to like the idea of dark blue/silver more and more. Still open to suggestions though!

This is the color blue I'm considering:

 
Stopped by the shop where the Elva currently lives for other business and found a bit more progress!

The front chassis rails are all welded in!



We also have the Spitfire towers tacked in place for the time being...need to find some Spitfire front control arms first. Anybody have any?


 
Small update! I found the original steering rack off the Courier:


But it's a little...bent.


I was going to have it repaired, but I took a quick look on Ebay UK and found a remanufactured RHD Spitfire rack for just over $200!


I also dug up the radiator, which appears to be perfectly fine and useable:



And I got the motor back from the dyno, too! Came out just under 300bhp, should be a lot of fun!

We removed the valve cover, oil pan, and gearbox internals to save weight. Should make a big difference. :smile:
 
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Big update today! The body is back on the car!

We did some quick work on the nose, just to get the basic shape of the headlight bucket back.

Some of the next areas to address are the side of the front cowl:


And where the cowl attaches to the dash:


Additionally, when we were placing the body back onto the chassis this happened:


Turns out this area had been previously repaired with bondo and WOOD:

If you can't tell, that's a big piece of plywood that someone used there for strength I assume. Looks like we might need to take a closer look at the bodywork from now on.

We got a nice gusset welded to the front of the new floor and the new rocker panel:


We have to do some modification to the new front chassis tubes to make things fit, but the trunk lines up almost perfectly!


We have the dummy motor and gearbox in there as well, just trying to see how things line up:


It looks like the motor is a couple inches too far forward by our initial measurements:


We do still need to cut a notch into the firewall just behind the cylinder head though. On the original Ford-powered cars, there was a notch just behind the head where ours is flat:


Still a lot left to do! Unfortunately, the incident with my daily driver now requires all my time and money so the Courier will have to stay like this for a while.... :(
 
Nice work, that's a big project, kudos to you and your team to take it on.
 
dougie said:
Nice work, that's a big project, kudos to you and your team to take it on.
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Thanks! It'll be a very rewarding result to get it back together.

A small addition: You can see here where the fabricated front chassis rails meet the nose. We have some measurements for the location of the stock brackets (and may still be able to use the brackets from the bent front end), but it'll have to wait until I have the funds.
 
Really exciting update today! I've been chatting with a friend who is a longtime Elva fan and expert, and he offered to search around for any info about MkIV Couriers and my car in particular. Look what came in the mail!

He put together an awesome collection of period magazine ads, road tests, and an article about the restoration of another Courier MkIV, but this was BY FAR the coolest part:


That's the original bill of sale for my car! Holy crap! It's awesome to know where the car came from, what options it had on it from the dealership, and to look at some of the interesting details like the original owner trading in a 1962 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spyder for a whopping $500 credit. Very cool stuff! :D
 
That's a great piece of history to go along with your car. I especially like the penmanship of the salesman who wrote up the invoice. It looks like my daughters, when she was six. Gotta love car guys, who needs english when there's a shop class that's way more fun!
 
It's my first update is a very long time, but an exciting one! :D

Bodywork continues on the Elva, with the inner fender installed on the left side, the left headlight bucket and bumperette area rebuilt, the left rocker panel rebuilt, the left pedal box rebuilt, and some extra "clearance" work done to the firewall to leave plenty of room around the Ford cylinder head.

Her face is looking more complete!


Some shots of the bumperette/headlight area:



The inner fender is feeling more at home!




Roughed out rocker panel:


The pedal box/firewall area, complete with custom catch bottle :p



Inside the pedal box, all new:


I'm collecting engine and gearbox parts as well which I hope to start building up while the bodywork continues! If anyone has a steel Ford 1500 crank, aluminum or lightweight steel flywheel, and/or a good used 5-port dry sump pump for a 1500 pre-crossflow, please let me know!
 
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DART said:
Nice to see you are able to work on it again. Think you will have her on track this year?
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It sure is! My goal is the September Elva reunion/60th anniversary at NJMP. It really depends on me finding the few pre-crossflow parts I need, because I know the bodywork and other assembly can get done in time.
 
Sculpture in frozen snot! What a great thing to see.
 
Another small but exciting update! The left front fender has been revived!

The front of the rocker has been mostly re-formed as well, and a bit more progress was made on the front bumperette:


We also have the area around the door hinge almost completely rebuilt, with only a couple small patches left!


My hope is to remove the various aluminum patches from the rear firewall tomorrow so we can make it one smooth fiberglass piece, and it sounds like I might get my first chance to do some fiberglass of my own! :D
 
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Got a bit more work done on the Courier today, although I didn't get to the fiberglass like I'd hoped. Looks like that will be tomorrow.

When I arrived, I discovered some progress around the front fender, door hinge, and rear of the door opening:




The hinge bolts are now welded in, which should make installation and removal a lot more possible in the future.

Today I removed all the dumb aluminum panels which had been installed to cover various holes and breaks in the fiberglass on the rear firewall and transmission tunnel:




It appears "grab the scrap aluminum" was the go-to fix for some previous owner...

Tomorrow should be fiberglass day! I think I'll be working on gluing the inner fender to the outer one, but we will see.
 
Another update! :D

Today was my first experience with fiberglass, something I feel is almost prerequisite to working with vintage British race cars. I focused on the area inside the left front fender, attaching the inner fender to the outer. I took a few "before" pictures as a point of comparison:




I also did some small smoothing out of the area between the hood and the headlight:



Here are the results of about three hours' work:





This picture is the rear of the fender well, it's kind of hard to tell by itself:

This is the small patch made just in front of the suspension tower:


I forgot the "after" pictures of the outside, but I'll get those sometime soon!

I was pretty happy with my first effort, with only one air pocket and minimal sloppiness. The most important thing I learned? More gloves = less sadness.
 
I watch Chip Foose the other day tape carefully the shape around one side of a headlight orbit of a car. Then he flip it over to duplicate the other side so as both headlight orbits were exactly the same.
 
BlueMax said:
I watch Chip Foose the other day tape carefully the shape around one side of a headlight orbit of a car. Then he flip it over to duplicate the other side so as both headlight orbits were exactly the same.
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Yeah, that's basically what we did with the fender arch and it worked surprisingly well. You always have to be prepared for asymmetry on these cars!
 
Not an update per se, but some exciting finds! :D

First, I found a good used Titan 5-port dry sump oil pump:



I also found an awesome std/std forged 6-bolt crankshaft, good for 8,000rpm (more than I'll use, of course)!



And I took some time after work to clear a bench and get ready to assemble my gearbox with Dad! I have a few parts there now, with a bunch more to move:
 
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