Kit Car Assembly or Fun with Fiberglass

By Richard Lewis

I have built a couple of kit cars and can give potential builders a few pointers on the techniques and tools you will need to master to assemble one of these.  The article below is an edited version of a 6 part article I wrote for a UK Car Club Magazine. If it seems a bit disjointed and unorganized much of that is because it has been edited to remove all the information that was specific to the particular kit and make it apply in general to all kit cars. It should give you some tips I have learned and also I’ve tried to inject a bit of humor into the fun of building your own kit car.

First are some of the educational training prerequisites you should master.

Take an Anger Management class
In the process of building a kit car you will have to be prepared to deal with anger. This anger may be self-directed but may take other forms like being angry with other owners who talked you into this, the kit builder or even the man who invented fiberglass. This is all completely normal. In a few hours or days or perhaps even weeks, you will be able to return to building your kit and enjoying yourself. Also, contact your doctor and explain to him that you will need some strong sedatives, anti-depressants, pain killers and other drugs like Valium and Prozac for the next few months and for him to call the pharmacy in advance and have these waiting for you. 

Take a First Aid class
You are going to hurt yourself and others and need to be prepared to render assistance. I have now burned my fingers, have cut myself numerous times and bumped my head repeatedly. The crowning achievement was accidentally slamming closed the hood of my car on my poor wife who already had a bad back. The good news is that she did not let go of the ratchet she was holding at the time. Now that is dedication! The story is told of a kit car builder who was seriously injured while working under his car. He raised his head up to adjust something and struck his head on the end of a sharp bolt that protruded too far through the floor. His head then fell down and hit the concrete floor whereupon he automatically raised up again hitting the same bolt again. This went on for a short time until he was unconscious from either the loss of blood from the bolt or the concussion from hitting the concrete – the doctor could not tell for sure.    

Take a Yoga class
If you have been watching late night television you have probably seen the fellow the Yogi Kudu who can fold up his body into a 2 foot square box. This is the type of flexibility required to get under the dash of many kit cars to do the wiring, fit the brake lines and do the throttle cable adjustments. If you can’t touch your toes you can’t build this car. I can not but found a couple of friends who can so I was allowed to purchase the kit. An alternate solution to personal flexibility is to have a small child equipped with a cycling helmet that can be sent up under the dash and into other small places to attach wires, hold a wrench, etc. This will cost you a few ice cream cones but that is far cheaper than a chiropractor visit.   

Take a hieroglyphics reading class
The instructions for assembling a kit car can vary in detail and quality. One kit I built had 30 pages of instructions that looked like they were 10th generation copies of the originals and contained only very basic directions and a few poor quality pictures. The other car I did had no instructions at all. The manufacturer offered an assembly option and preferred people paid that. They obviously reasoned that if you chose not to pay the extra money for them to assemble your kit why should they help you with instructions? Where things get real tricky on most kits is the wiring. I believe that the symbols used on the various wiring diagrams look very similar to some Egyptian writing and hence I would recommend brushing up on your hieroglyphics.

Take a foreign language class
Depending on where your kit came from you may need assistance in translating your assembly instructions. Both of my kits came from the UK. Fortunately, I owned a British sports car before had a few ideas what things meant. Here are some common terms and phrases:

Boot = Trunk
Boot Sale = UK Swap Meet
Hood = Convertible Top
Bonnet = Hood
Loom = Wiring Harness
Drive it home = Beat on it with a hammer until it stops moving

Now let’s get serious. You were probably hoping that this would be a serious article and now I’m going to give you specific items you are going to need to build your kit car.

Jacks and stands
Most kit cars are fairly light in their unassembled state. If you have three large friends that lift weights, you can probably skip getting a jack. I have only out-of-shape friends so I purchased a nice floor jack and motorcycle jack. These have been indispensable for working on my kit cars. The motorcycle jack has long rubber pads that can allow you to pick up the car chassis from the front or back and can be used to move heavy parts and place them in position. As a point of reference, if your wife decides she must have a double oven, the motorcycle jack works quite well on installing the heavy double oven as well. Try to purchase one that has built-in stops that lock the lift at several positions. This will lessen the need for jack stands while you are working on the car for short periods. There are often not good jack stand points on a kit car. This motorcycle lift will be a big help. Also, investigate getting a lightweight floor jack that has a very low saddle height. Some of the new jacks are coming with 3” saddle heights and this will help the get under your car even if you have a flat tire. Try to get one that has a rubber padded saddle. This is less likely to slip off or mar the jack point. Due to their light weight kit cars like to fall off jack stands. Whenever you are crawling in and out of a lightweight car on stands it is a real possibility to dislodge it from the stands and end up having it fall on the floor. If you are upside down under the dash when this happens this can be a highly disorienting and painful experience. You may find that using a long wooden board under the car and sitting this on jack stands gives a better base for support. Also, is you drop your car off the stands it is entirely possible that your nice aluminum or fiberglass floor will end up with a jack stand shaped hole in it.          

Air tools
I have not counted the number of bolts on my kit cars but there are plenty. If you get tired of taking bolts on and off, you might consider getting a few air wrenches. There are a number of compact compressors available that are very reasonable in cost and won’t take up much space in your garage. Just remember that in the course of building the car you are probably going to be trial fitting and tightening and loosening every bolt several times before you get it all together.

Garage space
The average kit car or car being restored takes three times the same space of the completed car. I have a three car garage and tried allotting one of those three spaces to my kit build. This resulted in barely enough space to work. The minute you lift the body off the chassis or when you are getting ready to install drive train with an engine hoist you will need more room – a lot more. As a minimum allow about 4 feet all the way around the outside of the car, if possible.

Time
No matter what time you have allotted to build the car I can guarantee that it will take longer – a lot longer. I missed several car shows that I was sure I’d be done in time to attend. There are many set-backs, mistakes you make yourself and other delays that will slow down the build process. Just trips to the hardware store for bolts and all the auto parts like hoses and wiring all takes time. You may find things that you want to improve on the standard kit. Each one of these seemingly little things you do to make your car special will add more hours and cost to the total build time and expense.

High Speed grinder (Dremel type)
You are going to need to trim a number of places on the body and dash. The holes for instruments can be cut much more easily with one of these tools than by hand filing, etc. Have a good selection of drum sanding bits for those little grinding jobs you will encounter.

Stepped drill bits
You will be drilling about a zillion holes in the process of finishing you car. Get one or two stepped drill bits in two size ranges up to 1” to make this task quicker and neater. A quick release chuck will make bit changes easier. On thicker areas of the body you may have to drill from one side and then the other to get the correct hole size all the way through the material. This type of drill bit seldom breaks out a lot of surrounding material like a conventional large size bit. It should give you a neater result.
    
Fasteners
You kit may come with fasteners precisely counted out in neat labeled bags or you may get a single big full of miscellaneous fasteners that seem like they must be for a different car. In any case you will likely need some bolts, washers and nuts along with various pop rivets. These are things you may want to stock the common sizes. Get a plastic container with dividers and obtain the bolts common sizes in metric or US, as appropriate. A word about bolt strength: You may want to upgrade bolts the kit manufacturer has supplied with Grade 8 or equivalent bolts. These are commonly used on high stress areas like seat belts, engine mounts, brake mounts, etc. These are not always easily obtained from you local hardware store and may need to be purchased online so plan ahead on the sizes you will need. Also a word about nuts: Nylon lock nuts are ideal for a final assembly situation as they will prevent a nut from backing off. However, on most kits you will have the assemblies together and apart so many times before the final assembly the nylon locking feature will long since be rendered ineffective by all the assembly and disassembly of the parts. Instead use regular nuts and wafer or lock washers for all the initial assembly unless you know it is something that will never be removed again. This will give you the added benefit of being able to quickly undo nuts by hand after the bolt is loosened slightly. With a nylon lock nut you can’t really remove the nut with fingers as the locking part will make wrenches necessary until the bolt threads clear the nylon material.

The last fastener that you will want to be able to use is nut inserts (or nutserts). This requires an installation gun that looks like a heavy duty pop rivet gun and the installed insert has inside threads for bolting things to the frame or other metallic structures. If your kit uses sheet metal screws for radiator mounts or other attachment points you will want to replace those with nut inserts.

The last fastener note is about threads. It is common for threads to get paint or plating in them or to get cross threaded. An inexpensive $25 – $50 tap and die set along with some cutting oil can make quick work of any of these problems.                        

Ordering and Costs
Well, honestly, we have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves here, since you will first need order your car and receive it before you can begin building it. There are a number of decisions that you will need to make as you decide what options to pick on the options list and then also you will need to decide what state of assembly you would like to get your car in. The factory may offer the car in every state of completion from a box of parts to a fully assembled unit. Also, they occasionally have used cars come on the market that they can steer you towards. It is often said that patience is a virtue. Your kit builder may tell you a very satisfactory delivery date and gladly take your deposit only to then leave of a 3 month vacation. The builder of my first kit stopped answering his phone. Eventually when I reached him he explained that he received many calls and e-mail inquiries each day from prospective buyers that never would buy anything. He could either take the time to visit with each of them or work on my car. I did not call him much after that because I expected him to pick up the phone and say my car would be delayed another 3 days because he had taken my call. 

Often when you order the kit the manufacturer will want you to supply information about the donor engine and transmission you are using so frame customizations can be done on your frame to make mounting easier. Some decisions may be able to be postponed but others must be decided up front depending on your kit manufacturer. Just be sure you have these details really pinned down so you are not calling the kit manufacturer after your kit is nearly completed to tell him you have changed from a big block Chevy to a small block Ford.

If you are not a big fan of having fiberglass dust stuck in all the pores of your skin, I would recommend that you seriously consider having the factory do some of the trimming and fitting of the fiberglass body parts. Beyond that, you can determine what else you are fearful of and also look through the options list and decide what preassembly and options you would like.   

The Kit itself is usually the thing the newbie builder focuses on when he exclaims to his wife. “Wow Martha I can build a 427 Cobra for only $12,995!” Two years, $40,000 and a near divorce later he realizes the kit price was a drop in the bucket in the whole scheme of things. Remember that kits are priced as low as possible to entice buyers in. Count on spending 3 times the kit price to complete your car.    

Keep in mind there are four basic categories of items you will need for completing the car.

Kit (body w/chassis)
Kit peripherals including wiring harness, lights, seats, fasteners, etc.
Donor stuff (engine, trans, suspension steering etc.
Other Parts (bolts, fasteners, miscellaneous wiring, etc.)       

The list above is basically self explanatory except for the “Other Parts”. I can tell you I have spent a boat-load of money on the “Other Parts”. It is difficult to tell exactly what these parts are because they disappear into my garage and onto the car relatively unnoticed. I believe I have carted home what seems like hundreds of nuts and bolts, rivets, wires, connectors, power strips, fuses, switches, lights, a battery and “Other Parts” and put them on the car. The car seems to just suck up the parts and dollars I have spent, smiles at me with that cute grin and wants more “Other Parts”.

One of the first questions I’m often asked is what exactly it cost to build my kit car. Remember that your price of a total build and import costs will vary greatly depending on how much of the build you do yourself, your donor parts costs and shipping arrangements. Honestly if you can find one, you could probably purchase a very nice used kit car for less than the cost of building one.

Importing a Kit Car
If you are planning on importing a kit to the US or other countries you will need to do some advance research on import regulations and licensing requirements. I will give you the basic information on importing to the US.  Also, a quick word about import costs. As of this writing, the cost to Sea ship a kit car in a 12’ x 6’ x 5’ crate to the West Coast of the US was about $4500 USD including duty. During the final four weeks of my car arriving in the US, I had a number of individuals representing different companies or government entities call me to inform me that I owed them money. Even when I thought I was all set I had to pay a “fork lift fee” for the warehouse to load the crate onto my trailer. Just be prepared for all the last minute charges. I would caution you to not make any one mad during this process. One kit builder I know began to question a bunch of charges his import broker was adding on and ended up with his kit being impounded. During the time this was sorted out he had to pay storage charges on the crate and eventually had to hire a second broker to rescue the crate for him because the first broker refused to do business with him any more. When he was all done he had paid twice the fees plus the storage charges.       

There is a word of warning here: In the UK, US and many other countries there are always increasingly complex safety and smog regulations taking effect. In many countries the doorway for companies to build and for us to import and register a kit constructed car is closing. It may only be a matter of time before it will be very difficult for manufacturers to build and for us to own these types of cars. If you are thinking of building your own, there is no time like now to get started.       
            
Registration
Registration regulations in the US are a state by state situation. If you call or visit your local Motor Vehicle Department and ask them if you can license a kit car, you will likely get a negative or very confused response. These folks, bless their public servant hearts, are geared to deal with simple cookie-cutter situations. It is best for you to take the initiative to research your local laws yourself, contact other owners in your area, and contact the manufacturer. Often manufacturers will be reluctant to provide specific advice on registration. They don’t want to sell you a car with any promises and then 2 years later have you find out that there is no way to register the car in your state. Armed with all that information you should be able to decide if your car can be registered in your state and what hoops you will need to jump through to make that happen.

I’m going to fast forward for a moment and tell you that I have my kit car together and have been taking friends out for rides. It has been great fun and will be worth all the torture you have gone through to get the car together. I received more thumbs ups from all my neighbors than I can count and it was fantastic. All my friends commented on how well the car rode and handled.

Grand Arrival
All this being said, now back to the torture: About 6 months to a year after you have ordered your car and made countless calls to the factory, you will get the word that it is time to pick up the car. My first view of the mammoth crate was in the warehouse when I came to pick it up. The fork lift, that I had to pay an extra charge for, did not have long enough extension forks to lift the crate up lengthwise. Their solution was to put a forklift on each end and try to coordinate driving like this for about 100 yards out to my trailer. It was a very nerve wracking tug-of-war situation resulted in pieces of plywood breaking off the crate, the crate trying to fall off onto the ground and immense groans from the crate and its contents as they were stretched and twisted. Once it was on the trailer we opened the back of the crate and surveyed the damage which was really restricted to the crate and had not impacted the car except for a few scratches on the bottom. The crate was lashed down to a mammoth farm equipment trailer for the 40 mile trip back home.

Electrical Wiring
Now we will briefly cover the wiring of your car. We have all heard of horror stories of an electrical short starting a fire and a car being utterly destroyed. It is against this scary backdrop that you will want to be extremely careful with the electrical wiring on your car. If you don’t feel confident reading a wiring diagram, then you will need to enlist a friend that is gifted in this area. There is an important test you will want to have your friend do before you place your car’s wiring in his hands. Invite him over to have him help on a household electrical project like installing a ceiling fan or repairing a small appliance. If they seem to handle the task with confidence and assurance then this is the member to have on your team. If they insist on working on the electrical circuit while it is “Hot” and is raining down sparks on your flooring or knocks out the power in your entire neighborhood, then this is an instant disqualification for them in further kit car activities!  

I would recommend that you consider using a battery cut off switch (Hella makes a nice one you can find on eBay). This will give you the ability to quickly kill power to the electrical system and also gives you a cheap security system since these have a removable key.     

The next task is to look over the wiring diagram that comes from the factory. There are two main reasons that you will want to look over this diagram. First it is a great general reference document on what the electrical system generally might look like. Second it is a great source of conversation and good humor when you visit with other kit car owners at gatherings. Many a kit car builder has been thwarted at this stage of things and sold their incomplete car over electrical issues.

Your best source of information here is to consult with other owners. You may find the kit you are looking at has a discussion group on Yahoo for builder/owners.

Under the Dash Fun
You might recall that I recommended the yoga courses early on the many happy hours you spend under the dash are going to test your fitness in this area. Also, if you have installed any bolts in the under dash area that have protruding threads you should remove or shorten those now. These bolts are probably located in the very spot where you are going to be raising your head and you would not want to have to explain to everyone at work how you received the nasty gash on your head. I’m speaking in a highly theoretical sense here, because I never had a problem with this – Ouch!  If you are short like me you can put a small pillow under the dash, remove the driver’s seat and you can take a little nap while lying down on your back. This will make it difficult for your wife and kids to find you and you might be able to get some extra nap time in before being discovered. Anyway, under the dash and in the engine compartment you will likely be attaching male and female electrical connectors that you carted home from the nearest electronics or auto parts store. Most of these fittings are designed to be crimped on and I can guarantee you that unless you also solder these connectors on, you are tempting fate of a wire slipping out from vibration and shorting out. I used lots of solder and then covered them with heat shrinkable tubing and then used lots of zip ties to get the under-dash area organized and everything well connected and yet insulated from other parts.             

Moment of Truth Time
There comes a time when you are going to have to turn on that battery quick disconnect switch that you have had turned off all this time. After locating your fire extinguisher, rechecking all your connections and even having your electrician mentor review everything, you can turn on the main electrical switch. Now I would like to say that everything went well at this point but I was unable to get the engine to start and it took some more help from the Yahoo group car owners to get everything working correctly.  After locating the problem everything was squared away and it now working fine. I prefer to fire up the parts of the electrical system that are the most straightforward like headlights, taillights and turn signals. After I have all these working I will add the engine connections and attempt to fire the engine. Remember that engine computers don’t like to be hooked up backwards. Double check all your connections before powering up the engine circuit.      

Safety Considerations
As I had noted previously, electrical fires are always a major concern. Many a car has had a small short circuit that led to big problems. I was careful to solder and heat shrink cover all my connectors and solder joints. I used female spade connectors anywhere there was power and male connecters where there was load. This way, if a connection were to vibrate loose, there would not be a live, uncovered male spade bouncing around arcing off of any metal chassis areas. I used zip ties to anchor all the wires and connectors and keep them from moving around. Remember that, depending on your kit, the suspension travel might be limited and the ride firm meaning vibration will be greater than in a cushy production car. In the case of connectors that I knew would never be disconnected, unless I was doing a major disassembly, I used heat shrink tubing over the top of the connectors after they had been snapped together making them permanently attached. If I ever need to remove them in the future, I can cut off the heat shrink and unsnap them.  

On the fuel safety side of things, I like to use an electric valve that cuts off fuel flow. This can also be used as a part of an alarm system to disable the car. If you are working on a car that uses a motorcycle power plant some of these may be gravity fed. The electric valve will keep fuel from the tank from overpowering the carb float valves and flooding the engine.  

The steering and suspension is very important and you will want to regularly check all the bolts and be sure they are not backing off from vibration. Have the car aligned at a professional alignment shop to the specs the manufacturer supplies or to specs other owners supply.        

Regularly check the master cylinder and underside of your car for brake system leaks. Check brake hoses to calipers or drum brakes are not rubbing on wheels or tires.

So it is completed, right?
Each time I walk past my car in the garage, I realize that there are still little details I need to address, so I think the answer is that our cars are never completed. They are always a work in progress.

The fun begins!
I had my car at my place of employment for the employee car show. It was one of about 40+ cars including some very nice muscle, vintage and classic cars. It won the “Best Car” award for the show in voting by the employees. This was against cars like a 427 Cobra, a very nice restored Mustang, a Viper, a Maserati and many other much more expensive cars. People walked past the other cars to ask questions about mine. This made the cuts and bruises and other construction challenges all worth it for me!