Brabham BT40

[Bryan Miller]

Mike and Colin,

Mike , it is good you have purchased BT40-17 , I own down in Australia BT40-18
which is the late Chuck Dietrich's car , progressing slowly but steadily .

Most of the car is very original , we had to make a new rear engine bay as mine
had been left standing somewhere in a damp place , all done exactly as original in nickel bronze welding and we made a jig from the old frame , cut out the AM number and transferred that and a few little brackets to the new frame .

For a car that never ran in period in Australia we seem to have collected six now down here ,

BT40-11
BT40-12
BT40-18
BT40-30
BT40-35
BT40-36
and the owner of BT40-35 Neville Mackay has a 2nd in pieces in S.E.ASIA .

Regards , Bryan Miller.

[Collin Jackson]

Bryan

Thanks for the post.
I have BT40-37
And 1/2 mile away is a BT35 that is owed by Kevin Skinner.
No other Brabham's I know of in Western Canada.
One BT40 I know of in Washington State, and one in California.

[Collin Jackson]

Has anyone put a grease seal into the front wheel hubs?
Mine just has a washer/spacer but no seal.
I am considering revising the setup so I can get a proper rubber lip seal installed.
What was original and what is everyone else doing?

[SidewaysFeltham]

Originally Posted by Collin Jackson

Has anyone put a grease seal into the front wheel hubs?
Mine just has a washer/spacer but no seal.
I am considering revising the setup so I can get a proper rubber lip seal installed.
What was original and what is everyone else doing?

Colin:

Contact Len Selby, he does quite a bit on spares from this era. He could probably give good advice, too.

http://www.historicracing.org.uk/

[jfcracing]

The one in Washington State is BT40-33 and it is at JFC Racing

[Collin Jackson]

BT40 wheels after polishing!

[Collin Jackson]

Anyone run the Avon A11 tires?
What do you think about speed and durability?
Pressures?

Also just ordered some Penske 7500 shocks. Had to have them shortened to work and Dyno'd for my new 5" 300/350# front/rear spring sets. About $4K US dollars total including the springs, seats, tuning and dyno test.
-Yes i did all the motion ratios and corner weights for the tune.
Shocks supplied by: Chris Billings
Shock Shop
18601 NW Reeder Rd
Portland, Or USA, 97231
www.shock-shop.com
1-503-621-0621

Thx
Collin J

[Collin Jackson]

Picture of the car ready to test.
This is BT-37 run by Allen Ladder in 1973 then Ron Householder from 1974-78

[Collin Jackson]

Ran the car for the first time (BT40-37) last weekend in Portland Oregon, USA.
She was awesome to drive.
I put to much oil in her and it went every where!
Ran 300# fronts and 350# rears with about 4 degrees on the rear wing.
Ran within 2 seconds of Carter's March 77B lap record for vintage and we were just playing around. (IE: 1:18.2 lap)
Float levels were to high and I will have to get on that to stop the bogging.
Ran old DS11 brake pads and the pedal went deep after 15 laps or so,
-Thinking about some Performance Friction 2001 carbon pads
Lastly tach drive and cable leaks like a sieve! Any tips or sources?

Collin Jackson
1-604-880-4353

[Mike Rand]

Man those rims are gorgeous, you must have an army of youths to keep them looking like that !
I chose to go in a different direction as I well remembered how time intensive those wheels were my first trip around with a BT40 in 1975-5-6.
By the way, the ex-Ken Duclos two time SCCA National Championship winning car, BT40-17, that I bought a year ago, had sadly been sold on. Due to massive knee revision surgery and the attendant loss of both strength, feeling [in the all important right foot] and overall maneuverability I came to the conclusion it deserved a better steward than I could be.
The car was sold to Bob Burnside of Michigan, it will join the other three open wheelers in his stable alongside a Winkleman FB car, a Titan and a Crossle FF both for vintage/historic racing.
This is a substantial step for Bob but after talking at length I am convinced he will be a great keeper of this great car.
Back to those beautiful rims of Collins, I chose to have them crack tested and cleaned up and black powder coated.
They look just fine though compared to Collins they don't !
That said, the maintenance will involve wiping off the brake dust and that's about it !
Regarding pads, check out KFP Reds, they come harder but I would suggest nothing harder than the Blue and probably the Reds would be just fine.
And good luck with the car, the BT40 , while not a Tauranac car, maintains all the Brabham traits of strength and ease of working on it and driver friendly behavior on track.

[Collin Jackson]

Thanks Mike!!!
I polished the wheels on a lath with emery cloth for the bad bits.
Mostly just Scotch-brite fine cloth and WD-40.
When used on the lath it was actually pretty easy!
-I nice surprise indeed.

PS: I was not aware the BT40 was design by someone else!
Any Idea who did design her?

[Unit 2 Racing]

BT38, BT40 & BT41 were designed by Geoff Ferris after the Ecclestone takeover.

[Mike Rand]

John Saunders is correct as the monocoque Brabham production cars, the BT38 in F2/FB trim as well as the F2/B BT40 and the F3/FC BT41 were designed by Geoff Ferris who went on to design some remarkably successful Penske Indy Cars among others.
Tauranac did the Brabham F1 cars for awhile and of course later did the hugely successful RALT range of cars, all tub cars as well.

[Collin Jackson]

Going to run the car again in Seattle WA. USA May 1st weekend. Sovren Vintage weekend. This will set me up to run the Formula Atlantic Challenge race at the Spokane Wa, USA race on June 6th weekend.
PS: With the stock wing and my 1600 DBA Cosworth had to run a 21/27 5th!
These cars are way more slippery than the current cars! (20/27 5th or even slower)

[Daisy Dobermann 2]

to all Brabham BT40 & 41 owners.

I have all the body moulds for these cars as follows;
small nose with wings; full width nose; side pods; cockpit surround; rear cockpit surround; surround visor (coloured tints); engine cover; rear wing includes centre post and fittings.
I make all these to order in high quality fibre glass with white gel coat.
email me at info@hexdev.co.uk for price and lead time

[Collin Jackson]

Is anyone interested in a BT40 reunion race somewhere?
Let's see who is interested and then we can decide where & when

[275 GTB-4]

Originally Posted by RJ Nelkin

Funny BT38---BT40 story. My friend Chris Chrisafulli had a BT38 and was looking for a newer car. My wife was over at Fred Operts shop picking up some parts for us and while sitting in his office she noticed a check for $3500. made out to Paul Corazzo..She called me because I knew what the check was for: Corazzo's BT40...so I called paul and told him that I would give him $3800. for the car that day...bought it and sold it to Chrisifulli the next day for $4500.......I was not dishonest...just opertunistic...get it opertxxxxxx..RJ

Yes Siree Bob...those second Mice alus gits da cheese

[Rick Iverson]

Mike, so if I understand the previous posts correctly, your old car was was No. 11. Thoughts?

V/r

Iverson

Originally Posted by Mike Rand

Mike Rand here, enjoying the read.
Funny story RJ, how are you ? God knows if anyone was opportunistic it was, and I'm sure still is, Fred Opert.
Another thread I can add a bit of information to.
I bought the rebuilt Brian Robertson car [after he destroyed it in Singapore in 1973] from Opert to replace my crashed Rondel/Motul M1 in the early fall of 1974. Took it to Road Atlanta for the Runoffs, finished third in a 3 BT40 train, Duclos-Mike Hall-me with a new lap record that day.
I ran the car all of 1975 and it was showing it's age as an Atlantic/B car so I converted it to FC with a Cosworth BDJ 1,100cc injected motor. A little heavy for FC when guys were running F3 chassis with the same motor but a typical Brabham, strong, forgiving, easy to work on, brave, thrifty, clean, etc etc all the good Boy Scout stuff.
As someone else posted, no chassis number for you, we just didn't care back then.
Sold it to Larry Snover from Pennsylvania somewhere and I think he sold it to Ohio where at one point someone contacted me as they were converting it to a sports racer of some description.
I loved that car, real quality, a far cry from a modern production race car.