How much body work is needed?

[code9]

I'm considering doing a GTM build and in looking around I see a number of folks who have had to do what seems like a substantial amount of body work (e.g., fitting panels, fiddling with doors/glass, cutting and redoing, ...). Am I just seeing the few outliers or is several months of messing about correcting irregularities an integral part of a GTM build? How much time (or money) have you spent getting the body right?

Jeff

[LCD Gauges]

I'm about 40 hours into the body work, and I'm at the point of applying a second layer of filler to treat the imperfections along the parting lines. The most fitting that I've accomplished is getting the headlight buckets blended to the hood (Gen 1). There is nothing ready for 'fitting' as the doors are not hung, and the body is not fixed/aligned for setting the gap spacing, or anything of that nature. Looking forward, I still have to square up the hood, fix the front nose area, wheel wells, rad vent areas, straightening the lines where the hood meets the body, and the hood latch area.

Notice I haven't mentioned the doors, side vents, side windows, rear hatch, rear wheels, etc.

The body prep will extend well into the Winter months (without paint). Keep in mind I'm a total beginner at fiberglass work.

[rev2xs]

It depends on what you want to accomplish with the final product. If you want a basic track day car, then simply file down the join lines, even them out with bondo, prime, then paint. Should be really cheap and quick if thats is your intention. If you want a show car finish (as close to a production car as possible), then A LOT of time and money will go into that. Put it this way, for me at least the mechanicals and even the electrics where a piece of cake compared to the body work. And i have never done electrics before in my life either so i had to learn how to do that on the fly too. And when i couldnt cope with it anymore, i had the help of my cousins who are professional body shop guys here in Poland to take over for me and even they found the bodywork a royal PITA, and it was already half finished. Cost wise, i cant really comment because i'm in Poland and the costs where considerably less than what they would be for some one in the USA for example. But at least i could comment on the difficulty and the work load aspect of the body work.

I'm considering doing a GTM build and in looking around I see a number of folks who have had to do what seems like a substantial amount of body work (e.g., fitting panels, fiddling with doors/glass, cutting and redoing, ...). Am I just seeing the few outliers or is several months of messing about correcting irregularities an integral part of a GTM build? How much time (or money) have you spent getting the body right?

Jeff

[skullandbones]

If you really want a hands on view of the bodywork required for the GTM go to one of "fastthings" build threads. He is a perfectionist and shows the extreme amount of bodywork to get to that level. Then there is the track car approach as mentioned. Whenever I feel like there is a lot of work to do on my Mk III body, I go to a GTM site and come away feeling a lot better if you get my drift! Good luck, WEK.

[code9]

Thanks for the comments so far. I have been watching "fastthings" videos. Informative yet depressing. While I might not go to that level this would definitely NOT be just a track day car. I came across a video from Dave Smith (FFR001) introducing the Gen 2 GTM. One of the things he mentioned was tighter mold tolerances and reduced builder body work. From the fastthings series it seems there may still be issues with the doors etc. Somewhere I (on the FFR site?) saw an estimate of 600 hours to complete a GTM. I wonder if that was a Gen 1 or Gen 2 and how refined the body work is expected to be in that timeframe.