gtm build difficulty.

[jmetrick91]

it seems like for someone who knows a fair amount about cars the hardest part of this kit would be the body work and wiring is this true

well my freshman year of high school i was in auto body, then transfered over to auto tech to start my sophomore year. i learned a bit about body work my freshman year. painting, fixing dents etc. so body work wont really be a huge issue for me. as for the electrical, ive always struggled with understanding electrical. now ive done a fair share of cutting and splicing wires together. i try to invision that electricity runs through a curcuit a lot like how water runs through a pipe. small pipe, not much flow. larger pipe, much more flow. electricity works in the same way. small wire, not much flow. large wire, a larger flow. but electrical has always been a hard subject to me to tackle. that is because you cant see electricity running. its like magic to me. i do have an understanding of how it works, but i should have grasped more while in school. i believe when my uncle built his cobra he had a hard time with the electrical. and a nice guy on here who built his gtm, he told me he had to get wiring diagrams from the corvettes in order to complete the electrical. its a lot to tackle. have you ever seen a wiring diagram for a car circuit? its a maze of colors. real complex looking. try to pick one up on the internet. there quite complex with numbers and colors and all sorts of material that will get the average person very lost. in other words if i were to build, id probably have a bit of trouble with the electrical. anyway for you to have an understanding of what im talking about, google image "automotive wiring diagram". youll see why i get lost

[Tonka]

OMG You have captured the essence of a GTM build. I thought I'd die laughing. Best wishes and good luck!

[mfitz1]

ok thanks ill do that.

[mikespms]

You should look for someone building a GTM or a Factory Five car near you and offer to help, it will be a good experience for you. With your parents approval .

[mfitz1]

ok thanks

[mfitz1]

does the gym come with a wiring harness or do you need the one from the corvette

[mfitz1]

gtm

[Fugly_Old_Cowboy]

from what I understand, they come with a "Painless" harness

[Roger Reid]

The Painless wiring harness does not include the engine wiring harness. You need the engine wiring harness from the donor or a stand alone engine wiring harness.

[dave46]

You can download the build manual to your computer for a reasonable price through The FF website. I think I paid around ten dollars a few years ago. I just received a paper manual from someone who had bought it and decided not to build one off Ebay for 29.00 delivered yesterday and it is in perfect condition. It' huge and heavy though while the dowloaded version is easy to keep put away.
A bit of history about myself. I'm a 67 year old car nut who started reading Hot Rod magazine when I discovered it on the Bookmobile when I was in the 5th grade. I read everything I could get my hands on on engines and building hot rods for the next few years and Took auto shop all three years I was in high school and then two years of trade school studying auto mechanics. I worked as a mechanic after I got out of the Army in 1969 and then taught high school auto mechanics in the same school that I had graduated from for thirteen years. Somewhere along the line I finally figured out that while I wanted to build hot rods and custom cars I didn't like working on other people's cars but actually just wanted to build my own cars. I've built a T bucket starting with the bare steel tubing that I cut to size with a hacksaw and had my buddy weld together for me. I rebuilt the engine myself and designed and fabricated most of the parts. I also built a 48 Chevy pickup that I first took to the 1973 Street rod nationals and over the years won several awards with. Somewhere along the line I discovered the GTM and fell in love with it. I'm still at the stage of studying the build manuals every time I have some time, looking for the perfect donor car and trying to figure out how to put the money together to buy the kit. As someone said it may be a lot better to buy someone's half finished kit as those usually sell for less than the new kit and often have most of the basic parts off the donor car with them.

I've got 50 years more experience than you have but we are in same boat when it comes to building one of these cars. We need to study the build manuals, read every build thread of GTM's that are available and plan. We also need to work on our fabricating skills along the way. Mine will come from building a couple of projects I have have had on the back burner for a long time. One of those will probably be sold to pay for the GTM. Yours might come from taking auto mechanics or metal working classes in school.

[Factionite]

I laughed so hard at this, I cried. This would likely be me.