Donor parts prep completed

Rear Hub oil seals all replaced now; I left the bearings alone other than re-packing with grease it all looked smooth/shiny and serviceable.

Diff flange removed and oil seal replaced; a little WD40 helps 'unstick' the old seal + the seal puller tool makes light work of removing them. I had bought a 3 leg puller in preparation to work the flange off - in the end once the nut was removed it simply slid off the splines.

Nothing to do now but wait for the kit & gearbox....

Redux of progress so far

Garage cleared, painted, shelves & bench installed. The garage was originally breeze blocks which permanently drop grey dust so I opted to paint the bench end of the garage with some external sand textured paint to stabilise everything and add some reflected light to the area.

The flooring is a plastic tile product which I had installed some years ago when building a model railway, and the bench an interior door (part of the model railway deck) with a plywood top screwed on   for a more stable working surface.

Differential preped, but still waiting for the flange pinion oil seal to be replaced. This was variously attacked with Gunk de-greaser, old toothbrush & a wire brush attachment on my drill.

Shafts cleaned, CV boots replaced and CV cans painted. One of the boots was punctured, so I opted to replace them all. The slide-a-boot product meant I could do this without completely dismantling the CV joints.

Front hubs cleaned up, painted and studs removed ready for longer ones. Wire brush attachment again to knock back the surface rust then a liberal coat of black hammerite - but nothing on the surface which contacts the wheels - this face needs to be metal to metal friction fit.

Rear hub carriers waiting for a vice so I can prize out the old oil seals and replace:

Gearbox order placed

Reconditioned gearbox ordered; Type 9 standard box from FirstMotion, Paul was very helpful to talk through options; should take a couple of weeks.

Donor parts preparation

Diff shaft seals replaced; thinking about changing the flange plate seal...

Drive shaft boots replaced & generally tidied up

GBS Zero GT Kit Order Placed

GBS Zero kit order placed

Specification

Red GRP

GT Wide body, lowered floors, stainless steel panels

Team Dynamics black wheels

Smiths gauges

Zetec 2.0 Engine, Emerald ECU, GBS Plennum, GBS Water rail

Custom removable spare wheel carrier

Otherwise stock GBS parts.

Deferred

Seats, Exhaust, Windscreen & Wipers

Donor/Reconditioned parts

Type 9 Gearbox

3.62 Diff, drive shafts, front uprights & steering column with stalks

Kent kit car show Detling

Visited the Kent Kit Car show Detling

Not much to report, plenty of cars - which reinforced my decision to go with GBS.

GBS Nottingham and a decision

I visited GBS in Nottingham and potentially was going to drop in on Westfield on the way home, but ran out of time.

Shortlist

I don't like to pick too many holes in other designs, this is purely my subjective view against my requirements. All the cars in this list were possibles:

• GBS Zero - No manual and reliant on community and common sense to build. Factory is 3-4 hours away from home. Clean 'classic' build though and simplicity/straightforwardness of design. All parts available from GBS. (although I did source some donor parts separately anyway)

• Westfield - A definite possibility and the front runner for a while, but GRP body,  over complex cooling system, no boot to speak of and by default runs the fuel lines under the car floor pans a little too near the road.
• Tiger - Infamous badly fitting bonnet with 1-2cm gaps reported and seen in real example. Its a small car too - good for racing, but possibly not ideal for a tourer.
• Dax - definite option and local factory - but stung me for brochures and seem to need a little more metal work than others.
• MK - Never really managed to get any detail on the cars, didnt have the internet presence/community I expect to need/draw on.
• Caterham - Did their best to frighten me off by over emphasising the costs of their kit, and really wanting me to buy time in their rental models or pre built cars. I don't think it helped ringing them up 1 week after they were featured on Top Gear (unbeknownst to me) perhaps they had a lot of time-wasters through the door.

The boot space criteria is almost funny on this style car, however I felt it should be at least possible to have an overnight bag in the car - i.e. I'm building a road car as much as a racing/track day car. Some of the best runs in the old Spitfire were to the west country or up to Oxford and I never did make the trip to Monaco in it - so this has to be at least possible in the new motor.

Decision

The decision was almost made before I visited, it came down to:

1. Preference for  the minimal/ almost old school body of the Zero vs the other options which are GRP focused. I really preferred the idea of riveting body panels than working to make GRP fit.
2. Simple approach with things like the cooling system vs. over complexity on Westfield for example.
3. Good support community, both friendly supplier and an active online community.
4. Plenty of recent blogs and build diaries hilighting the minimal amount of fettling required, and in any event no welding!
5. Evidence of the model recently going through IVA
6. Price!

I spent a good hour with the team at GBS, supplied with tea, a tour of the workshop, stores, garage etc and lots of information about the cars. This was even though they were preparing and wrapping everything up for the Detling show - i.e. nothing was too much trouble to discuss.

Donor Parts

I had already decided to build a kit and had been looking into the donor aspect for some weeks, Sierra's parts becoming rarer, it made sense to source the parts before making an order, i.e. the current climate means the donor parts are harder to come by and more constraining than the off the shelf kit. I Went on to Goole and picked up the donor parts; diff, shafts and steering column from the guy I bought them from on Ebay.

I could spend the time refurbishing them while waiting for the kit delivery.

Post-note

Completed the car in 2013 and took her for the First run on 7th June 2013. 
Easter 2014 saw us on a 1,400 mile run around the Highlands of Scotland with 10 other kit cars.
Late Summer 2015 the longest run yet - 2,000+ mile round trip to Barcelona over the Pyrenees.