finished repairing nelly today.
i used Volkswagen mars red from halfords.
i doesnt match the rest of the car but has spurred me on to respray her in the summer.
nelly should look a million dollars with a nice respray.

having done the job my advice for would-be glassfibre hole/tear repairers is:
get resin, hardener, cut strand mat , at least ten cheap brushes that glass fibre folk sell - (regular paint brushes are NOT correct), goggles , and breathing mask, and body filler. i got ALL my stuff from cfsnet.co.uk. you will also need clean metal cans to mix the resin and hardener. i did not use any of the wee rollers that i bought but i was working upside down and vertical so the rollers never seemed the right thing to use.

wear a mask all the time.
Dont work if its below 15 centigrade the resin wont go off properly- i had the use of a garage and a wee blow heater so i cheated a bit on that.

1. cut out all the damaged fibre (remember gel-coat cracks go a long way as gel coat is NOT flexible)
i did not chase/fix all accident related gel-coat cracks cos i was in a rush but FOUND them all very quickly with white spirits.
shame on me. but i think i can grind out/repair my gel-coat cracks at a later date. am i stirring up future trouble? well ive had nelly for ten years and the gel coat cracks she had when i got her have not got any worse in ten years.
compared with other fibre cars ive seen i think GTM made a very good job of nelly.

2. clean and sand the back of the fibre with and electric sander and white spirits.
the clean and sanded area provides a sound key for the mat overlap that you will lay over the hole.
fix something to the front of the hole. i used wood bolted to the edges of the hole.
i tried to put the bolts outside the area of the overlap but falied slightly.
you dont want to fibre your bolts in !
make sure that the body is true after you have bolted the wood on.
make sure the back of the wood has a layer of grease or similar so the resin and glass fibre doesnt stick
afterwards. but be careful that your home-made release agent does not contaminate the hole surroundings
its just for the wood.

3. mix the resin and hardener as instructed - 2% hardener is about right.
i went to the pound shop and bought baby's bottles with graduations on them to measure the resin.
i found 150 ml of resin was all i needed per layer for my hole.
you have about 30 mins to lay a layer of resin and fibre. then wait three hours and do another layer.
i layed up four layers of one and one half ounce CSM on the front of my GTM rossa. thats too many for that area but it makes the repair strong. i used an overlap of about an inch and a half all round the hole. always stipple with the brush and make sure all the fibre is thoroughly wetted. i layer four layers in one day and came back the next day for part 4

4. unbolt / unattach the hole support - i found this to be tricky but got my wooden supports off.
im not telling how i got all my support bolts out. it did involve heat and did not damage the car.

5. lay a layer of fibre on the front of the hole if you want - i did where i could .

6. fill , sand and prime, and fill sand and prime again until you are happy.

7. topcoats on.

sorry if this is incorrect - its what i did.
my car is a daily driver and i needed it quickly.
it will need proper finishing and a respray this summer.

I've had a look at your Facebook pictures - Good job, excellent repair.

Me and my brother built Q987 YRX and ran it for 10 years, it's good to see that its in good hands! Sold it back in 2000 so I'm not sure the history since then.

I took it up Prescott Hill Climb (on one of their training days, not competatively) and round Castle Combe a few times when they had the Kit Car action days there. It was my daily commute for the first 5 years of its life and the only bits that let me down were the BL / Unipart bits (clutch slave cylinder being the worst culprit).

If you ever think of selling it let me know.

Hi Chrisbis!

you found me on linked in!
fantastic to hear from you!
i bought nelly from a chap in bolton in 2001.

since getting her i have done LOADS of things.

the osselli rally engine you fitted was very good. however i couldnt get hardened valve seats fitted so i sold the osselli head to a chap in Liverpool and now run a more standard head.
the kent 600 cam has also gone and nelly now has a kent 256 cam.
the gearbox has gone and has been replaced with a close ratio box from minimail in gloucestershire.
the block is still the osselli one with the centre main strap ive had her bored out to 1310cc
and have metro pistons. its still the same hif44 carb but the modified metro inlet manifold has gone
to be replaced with a minispares one.
the carb had an issue that i didnt spot for years. - the dashpot WAS TOO tall for the carb!! it could only raise about 2/3rds of the way up before hitting the top of the carb. i sorted that. if the carb was like this when you had it you would never have got full power . . . . .
the original stainless exhaust silencer seemed to be blocked - when i replaced it with a ford orion box nelly seemd to be transformed! i tried to cut open the stainless silencer to find out what was wrong but it was too strong for my angle grinder . . . .

go onto youtube and search for "nelly flatulating" you will see a video of nelly the day i fitted the ford orion exhaust.
nelly looked good that day . . .
i have some other videos on youtube that are nothing to do with nelly . . . .
after you have seen my "pinky hough" video you may not want to ever meet me . ha ha.

i do recommend ford orion boxes for gtm rossas - only £36
see this :
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EXFD6142-FORD ... 45ff237d8d

nelly still has the same seats and same dash.

i fitted a skoda radiator instead of the metro one . . .
ive got different wheels and run 165 tyres cos i think 185s are too big
replaced the rubber cones with springs . . . much better.
got magnetic ignition instead of the pihrana optical contacts you had.

nelly seems to be running really well at the moment - which is what i like.
(you will see my ram-pipe ramblings elsewhere on this forum.)
i genuinely prefer my gtm to an mx5 for daily use as the torque is there at low revs.

thats enough for now. best wishes.