Cory's Cobra Replica Build

I hate winter

2011-02-17T22:14:00.002-05:00

So, it's been cold here for the past several months. Like, really cold - too darn cold to do anything to my car. So it's just been sitting in the garage. Sigh.

I did make it to the London Cobra Show in June 2010 but not in my FFR. I went in our family car because the FFR wasn't ready. I won't be driving it this year either even if it is ready due to other obligations.

The weather has been nice for the past couple of days though and I've started tinkering about again. It appears that I need to pull the intake manifold as it's leaking oil at the rear seal and the thermostat housing is misting coolant. At least I can knock both of those out at one time and I hope I won't have to fool with them again.

In other news, I've ordered 4" Peep side mirrors from Speedway Motors and a hidden body mount kit from Breeze Automotive. I also made a bracket for the interior rear view mirror to mount it on top of the windshield instead of screwing it on to the body.

That's about it for now. Maybe I'll have updates worth posting in the near future. We'll see how Mother Nature treats me.

Seats

2010-05-31T12:06:00.003-04:00

My wife didn't like the stock low-back seats due to the risk of whiplash if we get rear-ended. Also, she says I snap her neck back when I accelerate hard. :innocent:

So I sold those and purchased a set of Cobra Clubman highback seats. Now the challenge is how to mount them.

The drivers side has to be adjustable so she can drive sometimes. I need the seat as far back as it will go while she needs it substantially forward to be able to reach the pedals. Luckily the passenger side can just be bolted in.

What to do?

UPDATE: I cheated. I ordered the Street Performer Seat Installation Kit from Breeze Automotive. I spent several weeks trying to make my own brackets and use the Mustang seat sliders and could never make them work.

So, my advice is, if you need to be able to move the seat fore and aft, just buy the brackets from Mark @ Breeze.

BIG NEWS!!!

2010-05-31T12:04:00.003-04:00

THE BODY IS ON!!! For the first time since February 2009, the body and chassis are one!

LCS or bust

2010-05-31T11:52:00.004-04:00

In anticipation of attending the London Cobra Show I've been putting in long hours trying to get the car streetable. It won't be finished by any stretch but I'm hoping to get it put together enough to allow me to register and license it.

I mounted all of the lights to check fitment, made some adjustments, swore a bit, adjusted some more and came away with the knowledge that I'll have some serious body work to do before it gets paint.

But I couldn't drive it with green stripes all over so I bought a quart of black sealer and shot it on the body. That one change made a dramatic difference in the appearance of the body. It has a sort of ratrod look from the satin finish. It won't stay that way too long but at least it's one color. It almost looks like a car with the lights back in.

I've been working on sound and heat insulation too. ERA Replicas recommends using Frost King HVAC duct insulation. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. I've done the footboxes, rear cockpit wall and transmission hump. The floorboards will be done after I figure out where to mount my seats.

I also installed the first piece of carpet. :-D

So this is how the car sits.

Will we make it to London? Who knows? Other life events may affect that decision. But I'm still going to try to have the car ready to go.

Body cutouts

2010-05-31T11:41:00.003-04:00

I finally worked up the nerve to do the body cutouts. I had heard horror stories of how inaccurate the cutouts were from the factory so I decided I would do them on my own. It also saved me $260.

It was a bit unnerving to take a hole saw to the car but I did it figuring I can fix it if (when?) I screw something up. Happily most everything turned out.

While I had the body upside down for the Herculiner, I cut the wheelwell lips and rounded those. They almost feel like rolled aluminum now.

I also cut for the side vents and had no problems.

The exhaust and rollbar cutouts were a different story. FFR marks the body for us DIY cutters and stupidly I used their marks.

As a result one exhaust cutout is 0.5" forward of the other so I'll have to close that gap with some fibreglass at a later date.

The bigger issue is the rollbars. 5 holes were off by just a bit but they can be adjusted with a sanding disc and covered with a bezel. But the passenger side diagonal brace hole is just wrong. It was off to the rear by about an inch and too far to the right by another inch. But again, it's fibreglass so I can fix it. But you'd think after selling over 6000 of these kits they could mark the holes properly!

The marks of where to drill for the light mounting studs were also wrong and the screws for the taillights on one side are both at an angle. Again, I can fix it but still...

Gauges

2010-05-31T11:11:00.003-04:00

I got my gauges recently. They came from Whitby Motorcars. They sell the Classic Instruments Classic Gauge set that includes the speedometer, tachometer, water temperature, oil pressure, voltmeter and fuel level gauges. I added a clock to fill the last hole in the dashboard.

When I started this build I told my wife that I one thing I had to have was a reverse reading speedometer and the Whitby kit has that. They're all electric gauges including the speedo. While this means I have to calibrate it, I won't have to change the drive gear in the transmission when I regear the rear axle - I just change some dip switches.

My workspace was the dining room table protected by an oh-so-stylish 101 Dalmatians blanket (my 21 and 25 year old sons don't want it any more for some reason.)

Everything went together smoothly. I used quick-disconnects in case I ever have to remove the dash. Yes, the gauges are wired together but the whole thing will unplug from the car without having to disconnect individual gauges.

All connections were crimped, tested and shrinkwrapped. The speedometer and tachometer each have dedicated ground connections to the frame while the other gauges share their ground. Testing showed that everything worked.

Then I took it all apart so I could veneer the dash. I'm using a white oak veneer with a stain that comes close to the color of the steering wheel. Once the dash is finished and sanded I can put everything back together and install it into the car.

Wheels!!!

2010-05-31T11:01:00.002-04:00

I've been using some extra wheels and tires to roll the chassis around during the build. They fit but they're too narrow and not the look I want for this car. Plus three of the tires are bald.

They actually belong to my youngest son but we put the stock wheels and some long-life tires on his car while he's in college. He can get the nice wheels back when he can buy some new tires.

Anyway, I finally found the wheels and tires I wanted. I ordered them from several places but it seemed that the rear wheels were on literal world backorder. Finally I found that Tire Rack had a set of American Racing Authentic Hot Rod wheels that were exactly what I wanted. They have polished lips and Anthracite spokes. The fronts are 17x9 with 245/45-17 Sumitomo HTR-Z tires. The rears are 315/35-17 HTR-Z on 17x10.5 wheels. They're a bit wider than the rollaround tires I'd been using.

I like them!

Herculiner?

2010-05-31T10:47:00.004-04:00

Once she finished the seams I wanted to coat the underside of the body to seal it, smooth(?) it over a bit and reduce the number of fibreglass slivers that I got in my hands every time I pushed the body in or out of the garage.

What to use?

HERCULINER! It's a DIY truck bed coating. I've used it in a Jeep before and it works very well. It has ground up rubber bits in it for traction (not really important on the underside of a fibreglass body) and is tough as nails.

I laid a tarp in the yard and we pushed the body buck outside. We removed the body from it, flipped it upside down and set it on the tarp. Then I went back into the garage and laid out an old carpet. On top of the carpet went two blankets, and then I used some of the FFR shipping paper over that. Overall I had close to an inch of padding. I repositioned the body brace and we carried it into the garage.

Since I hadn't done the cutting and bodywork on the edges yet, I taped them off so they didn't get coated.

Then I got to work. Notice the gloves and old clothes. Herculiner is wondrous stuff but the only way to remove it is with Xylene before it dries. After it dries it doesn't come off. Having read horror stories of this in the past I was extra careful.

Here's an in-progress shot so show how it looks.

I did two coats on the whole body with an extra two in each wheelwell to reduce the probability of rock 'pings' showing in the paint later.

After it was dry I removed the tape and we flipped it back over and put it back on the body buck.

Of course, this was prior to me cutting all of the holes in the body so it now adds an extra challenge to do that. This is just another instance of me doing the right thing at the wrong time.

Oh well...

More body work

2010-05-31T10:38:00.002-04:00

My lovely wife likes to do body work, so who am I to argue. Personally I don't enjoy it much - I prefer the mechanical and fabricating stuff.

Previously I posted that she had knocked down the gelcoat seams and done a bit of grinding into the fibreglass. Then cold weather set in.

So once the weather warmed up again, she dragged out the sander and the HSRF and did some primary filling of the seams.

What's HSRF? 3M High Strength Marine Filler. It's a vinylester based fibreglass repair filler that's impervious to water and widely used for structural boat repairs. In our case, she used it to bring the seams back to almost level so they can be finished to the proper profile with a body filler called Evercoat Rage. Rage shouldn't be applied more than 1/4" thick so the HSRF does the structural building.

And HSRF is green, so I have green stripes all over the body now.

Parking brake

2010-05-31T10:22:00.003-04:00

Since the chassis now runs and is (illegally) drivable, I figured I should have some sort of parking brake other than a block of wood.

Factory Five puts the parking brake handle in the stock Cobra location, i.e. on the right side of the transmission tunnel. There are two important points to consider about that.

First, in a right-hand drive car, it would be next to the drivers left knee and easy to release. However, in the good ol' USA, we sit on the left side of the car to drive so it's difficult to release the brake.

Second, and most important, if the driver has gone through the exercise of buckling the safety harness it's impossible to reach the brake handle to release it without unbuckling.

In reading the forums at FFCARS.COM (previously known as ffcobra.com but the name was changed due to a lawsuit by Mr. Shelby) I found that a Fiero brake handle could be used and mounted to the left of the drivers seat.

What's special about the Fiero handle to make it so desirable? It allows the brake to be set and then the handle to be pushed back down to flat, thus allowing unfettered ingress and egress to the drivers seat. To release the brake, you just pull the handle back up, push the release button and push it back down again.

No climbing over a parking brake lever and potentially hurting oneself. That's a good thing.

Of course, it also presents some fabrication issues since the FFR brake cable locations can't be used.

I ended up running the cable out behind the drivers seat and making a couple of brackets. One to hold the cable from the handle to the tee, and another to mount the cables that go to the brake calipers. Nothing too hard to do but there's way too much cable under there for my tastes. Someday I'll figure out the proper lengths and find someone to cut and swedge the cables.

I also had to double-over the front cable and use a clamp to attach it to the stock Mustang tee.

Happily it all works well and holds the car securely. The last thing I need to do is put some sort of indicator light on the dash to let me know when the brake is set. In my other cars I can just look at the handle and tell, but not this one.

Exhaust

2010-05-31T10:05:00.003-04:00

The go-cart run was done with an unpainted exhaust as it came from Factory Five. Once the weather warmed up I pulled the sidepipes back off and did some cleaning and sanding. I was surprised at how much surface rust had formed on the pipes, especially anywhere I had touched them.

I sanded them with 320 grit paper and wiped them down with acetone. Then came the challenge of how to paint them.

Since the body buck was in the lowered position I had the stilts available. I used them to build a temporary rack and hung the pipes from that so I could paint them.

You can see that the wheels are still on the rack as I knew this was just a short term solution and I'd need to put the body back up later.

Anyway, the pipes are now a nice flat/satin black and hopefully there will be no more rust problems.

Eventually, when the packing burns out, I'll replace the actual muffler part and I may get them ceramic coated but for now this is cheap, looks okay and can be touched up easily.

Go-cart!

2010-05-31T09:59:00.002-04:00

After I got the engine running and tied up more than a few loose ends on it, I got a chance to run the chassis up and down the street as a go-cart. I don't have any video but my lovely wife took a few pictures to commemorate the event.

Here's my first pass down the street.

And pulling back into the driveway.

The only gauge I was running at the time was a mechanical oil pressure gauge so I had to be careful not to run the engine too long or too hard since I didn't know how hot it would get.

But this thing is QUICK and I never got past 1/4 throttle.

It seems like forever...

2010-05-31T09:58:00.002-04:00

since I updated this blog. Well, it's been 5 months anyway.

Winter presented too much cold weather to work in my unheated garage very much and I've been trying to catch up since it warmed up, thus the lack of updates.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get everything up-to-date today and get back on track with regular updates again.

I got it started!!!

2010-01-20T22:12:00.003-05:00

Tonight I finally got the engine started. It's been a several day battle that entailed chasing a bunch of electrical demons, making new ground cables out of an old one, purchasing a battery and cleaning/rebuilding the starter.

I kept fighting these demons because when I turned the key, the engine would just go "ERNK" and turn about 1/16 of a revolution. I asked on ffcars.com and almost everyone said it was a grounding problem. Hence the reason I made new ground cables.

After that, it still went "ERNK" so I swiped the battery out of the Marlin (that was originally purchased for the Mustang donor) and tried that.

"ERNK"

I hooked it to our Jeep with jumper cables.

"ERNK"

After a couple of days cooling off and much cussing I decided I'd try one more thing. Every time I'd tried to start it I had connected the battery with jumper cables since I don't have the battery box mounted yet. This time I connected the cables directly to the battery.

AND IT FINALLY TURNED OVER!!

I found a fuel leak so I tightened the fuel line clamps. The power steering fitting leaks but I expected that - I wanted to flush the steering fluid anyway so it's not a problem.

So I got all excited and thought, "This is it! I'll finally get to hear this thing run!"

Except that I forgot to hook up the distributor.

Once I found that and hooked it up, I was rewarded with this.

So now I need to do some housekeeping, mount the battery box, run a few more cables, etc. BUT IT FINALLY STARTED!!!!

To quote Mater from Cars, "I'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park right now!"

Has it really been that long?

2010-01-08T19:18:00.004-05:00

When we last left our intrepid builder he was untangling the mass of subtle clues and diagrams desperately searching for a diamond in the rough...

Okay, I was cleaning grease and crud off of the engine. I have one thing to say, Simple Green and Krud Kutter are wondrous cleaners!

As you may recall, the engine looked pretty bad.

A gallon or so of Simple Green later it was clean. But it was still ugly. It was soooo ugly... that I have no pictures of it.

After much taping and various cans of paint, I was rewarded with this.

It still had the stock valve covers on it and no bolt-ons. But it looked a LOT better. So, shortly thereafter, I did this.

Remember these?

After installing all of the stuff in the boxes, the engine now looks like this.

And that's what I've been doing.

I've still got plenty to do but I'm getting closer to the first start.

The biggest problem now is that it's gone and gotten cold. So cold that these guys are talking about moving to Florida.

Ugly engine and starting some bodywork

2009-10-17T21:46:00.005-04:00

After I pulled the engine out of the donor, it got pushed to a corner of the garage and I really hadn't looked at it since then.

Well, it was time to drag it back out and take a good look at it and start cleaning.

I'd forgotten how bad it looked...

(Oh, click on the pictures for full size. I don't know why the previews are always cut off here, but they are.)

Pretty bad actually. And take a look at the motor mounts.

They're in great shape, eh?

Luckily I have a set of Energy Suspension poly mounts to replace those once everything gets cleaned and pretty again.

Since I can't put in something that ugly, I decided to do something about it. I spent some time on the internet and a few days later I got home to find this waiting on my porch.

Now what could be in those boxes? Hmmm. You'll have to wait to find out.

My wife has been promising to help me with this project all along but she really doesn't enjoy mechanical work. Despite that she helped me pull the engine and transmission a while back.

But what she does enjoy is bodywork. So we pulled the body shell off of the tall storage body buck and got it to working level for her. Then she went to work sanding the gelcoat seams. They're going to take some work to get completely cleaned out and ready for HSRF but not nearly as bad as others of which I've seen pictures.

After that it started raining. Of course...

If you look closely behind her, you'll see her project car that gets started when we finish the Roadster. It's a 1965 Rambler Marlin with a fire-breathing 232 CID straight six engine and automatic transmission.

Here's a picture of the car from the ad where we bought it.

Aaaand I'm back!

2009-09-18T21:08:00.007-04:00

And still wiring!

I replaced my dead HP PC with a new iMac24. The screen size is somewhat overwhelming but at least I don't have to squint any more.

Wiring continues. I've got the fusebox mounted and all of the lights working. I also wired in the electric fuel pump although that won't be used as it turns out. I'm changing to a mechanical fuel pump instead. So I've got an extra wire running to the back that I can use for whatever I need - backup light maybe?

Now for a few pictures.

Ugly wiring.

More ugly wires.

Temporary test dashboard.

The fuse box hanging via clamp while hooking up wires.

The rolling chassis on temp wheels with wiring pigtails installed.

I decided to go against common wisdom and use wiring connectors from Breeze Automotive instead of weatherpak connectors. As it turns out, the Breeze wiring kit is trailer wiring but it also includes excellent directions, weatherseal shrink wrap, wire loom, crimp connectors for grounding all of the circuits, and even grounding bolts. It's somewhat less expensive than the weatherpak kits and you don't need a special crimp tool to install the connectors.

I soldered and shrink-wrapped all of the connections with no problems at all. Well, maybe just one.

The rear lights were a challenge until I sat down and just figured it out. I have running lights on all four lights. The upper lights will be brakes and the lowers will be turn signals. The challenge was how to use the Breeze connectors and hook both sets of running lights together since the three-wire connectors don't really make any allowance for that. I ended up connecting the "dim" filament wires together from both pigtails and then connecting those to the running light feed wire. It sounds simple but I did some headscratching to figure out the best way to connect everything. As usual, the second side looks much better than the first, but they all work and I'm happy.

Wiring and other stuff

2009-08-30T22:00:00.001-04:00

I'm working on wiring now. Originally I was planning to use the Mustang wiring and diet out the stuff I didn't need. But when I started looking at the wires in detail I found a few crispy ones and decided I really didn't want to see my car burn up from an electrical short.

So, I bought the American Autowire Highway 15 kit. It's a generic wiring kit for Street Rods but will work fine for my build as well.

I've got the fusebox located and all of the lights are functioning except the 4-way flashers but I've about got that licked too.

Once that's all in, I plan to clean up the engine and drop it in.

In other news, there are no pictures yet because my primary computer died. You know, the one that had EVERYTHING on it. I'm hoping the hard drive is salvageable but I haven't had a chance to work on it yet.

So anyway, that's the latest news. Sorry it's been so long between posts.

Parts Score!

2009-07-27T12:49:00.003-04:00

We hit the junkyard last weekend. I scored a Fiero emergency brake handle and a right-angle oil filter adapter.

The e-brake handle will let me mount it next to the drivers seat on the floor, rather than putting it on the center transmission hump.

And the oil filter adapter means I don't have to run the (typically leaky) remote oil filter.

All for less than $20!

I love junkyarding.

Brake lines finished.

2009-07-27T12:42:00.006-04:00

All of the brake - both hard and flexible - lines are now in place. The connections were tightened, brake fluid added, and brake bleeding commenced. Several connections were then RE-tightened to stem the dripping brake fluid. Overall it was a success though - nothing had to be reflared. I did have to remount the front flexible line mounts though - the original orientation would have caused too much bind when the wheels were at full up-travel.

So now the car will stop! It won't go yet, but that's a minor point.

I also got the fuel lines run. I'm really happy with the way they turned out by the fuel tank. I HATE the FFR clamps though - they're really cheap and the rubber peels off of them too easily.

But those are also in place for now. I have to figure out where they'll go in the engine bay but I can't do that until I drop in the engine and see where they have to connect.

Cindy riveted in both floorpans and then I put the modified passenger footbox together. I have one panel left to go but I want to add some rivets to the foot pan first and it's easier to do without the outer panel in place.

Passenger footbox expanded

2009-07-10T09:54:00.003-04:00

One major complaint that many FFR owners share is that the passenger footbox is too small. It's substantially smaller than the drivers footbox for no (to me and many others) apparent reason. When I rode in the passenger side of an FFR at the London Cobra Show recently, this fact was reinforced. I had to twist my feet uncomfortably to make them fit.

There are a couple of commercial solutions available, but with some new jigsaw blades and a brand new Harbor Freight metal break in my possession, I wanted to try my hand at building my own.

The stock box looks like this.

See how the inside wall angles in? That really cuts into the available footroom. Here's an overhead shot of the same box.

And here's an inside shot.

I used my best quality high-end modeling materials (pizza and cereal boxes) to redesign the footbox panels.

And this is what I ended up with.

Notice how much larger the front of the footbox is compared to the stock one. This equates to a tremendous increase in footroom.

And an inside shot.

I'm happy with how it turned out. The panels could fit together a bit better but I'm going to seal the gaps with aluminum tape and silicone to weatherproof them.

And my wife is much happier now that her feet will fit more comfortably.

I haz a roller!

2009-06-19T10:53:00.002-04:00

I have achieved rolling chassis status, aka a roller!

I don't have the proper wheels and tires yet so I 'borrowed' the autocross set that I use on my Miata.

Almost immediately after pushing the car outside for these pictures, it started to rain. So it went right back into the garage.

It's going back on jackstands tonight and I'm hoping to start running brake lines. Also I need the autocross tires for Sunday.

Latest achievements

2009-06-11T14:50:00.005-04:00

The rear axle assembly has been removed from the Mustang and it has been cleaned and painted.

Lots of scum and residue around the vent.

Cleaned up a bit.

The drum brakes and 4-lug axles have been removed.

The disc brake mounting brackets from North Racecars have been painted and installed.

The five-lug axle shafts have been installed.

The 3-link rear suspension has been installed and the axle is mounted in the frame.

WHEW!

I'm finally starting to build!

2009-05-28T19:18:00.006-04:00

The gas tank and straps have been cleaned and painted. The plastic cover cleaned up really well, so I'm going to leave it alone. The sending unit tests okay so I'm hoping it will work with whatever gauges I end up with in the car. I'm going to cut an access opening in the trunk regardless so even if it goes out I don't have to drop the tank to swap it.

And I'm finally starting to put some things together!

The donor isn't completely stripped but I'm tired of fighting dirty parts for a while.

I've cleaned up and painted the stuff for the front end so I decided to put it together.

First up was an upper control arm. I installed the ball joint as per the instructions but used some lock-tite on it rather than tack welding it in place. I also marked it so I can tell if it turns.

Then, with some bubble wrap around the frame to protect it, I bolted the arm into place.

After that I put on the lower control arm, spindle adapter and spindle.

With the help of my trusty assistant Flash, I installed the KONI coilover shock assembly and brake disc and caliper.

Then it was lather, rinse and repeat for the other side.

Back to the dirty, nasty parts, I pulled the steering rack out of the Mustang. It was, like everything else, nasty.

I scrubbed it with Simple Green and then wiped it down with Acetone. A coating of Hammered Black paint followed for the body while the lines got cleaned and sprayed with silver. I didn't get a picture of it before I installed it but it looks really nice. I installed Energy Suspension mount bushings and then installed the rack into the frame. Then I put in the FFR rack spacers and reinstalled the inner tie rods. I'm waiting for the rack boots to dry and then I can install the tie rod ends.

Here's a shot of it painted up and installed.

While I was at it, I installed the steering column and placed the steering wheel on for a picture.

And thus endeth Box 1.

The gas tank is out!

2009-05-08T09:05:00.009-04:00

And I didn't even blow up myself or my garage. :-D

Overall it was fairly uneventful even though the mounting strap bolts were pretty corroded.

I used a jack with a piece of wood on it to support the tank while I removed the strap bolts. Once those were out I dropped the tank down a bit and disconnected the fill tube. With that out, there was enough slack in the hoses to set the tank on the ground. Of course it shifted but I only spilled about a cup of gas.

Ford uses special fittings on the gas lines and the method for disconnecting them is not terribly obvious - especially when you're working upside-down under the car. Once I got the tank on the ground, I could get a clear look at them and see how they worked.

So, everything got disconnected and I took the tank outside to drain it. Important point here - make sure it's as empty as possible before beginning this whole operation. My tank had about 2.5 gallons left in it and it sloshed around no matter how carefully I carried it.

I put an empty gas can on the ground and bungee-corded a funnel to it. I had my son hold a light (this was 9:30 at night, of course) so I could "see" what I was doing and I proceeded to aim the tank discharge at the funnel.

That didn't work too well.

Gas still splashed everywhere. I'm glad I put down plastic and rags to catch it before beginning. So, my son got another, smaller funnel and held it against the tank to minimize splashing and we pointed that one at the funnel stuck to the gas can.

Success! Mostly.

We still spilled a bit but it worked a lot better this way. I'd say we got 98% of the gas into the can and the remaining spills got soaked up by the carefully positioned rags surrounding the can.

I wiped the spillage off of the gas can and set it to the side. Then I picked up all of the gas soaked rags to dispose of safely.

Feeling happy with a job well-done, I walked back into the garage and was treated to the sight and smell of a large pool of gasoline under the car. It seems that by removing the tank, there was no longer any sort of vacuum holding the gas in the lines, and despite my carefully placed bolts-in-the-rubber-fuel-lines, they leaked.

Cat litter was rapidly and liberally tossed about on the pool of gas. It soaked up the spill quickly and was swept up and set outside. Momentarily I considered seeing if gas-soaked cat litter would burn, but it was late and I figured I'd done enough dumb things for the night.

So now I have to clean and paint the tank, cover and mounting straps. I also need to test the sending unit since the gauge in the car never worked.

But I'm getting ever-so-closer to being finished with the donor and then I can finally start building my car.

Here's the dirty tank picture.

It's just getting cleaned, de-rusted and painted black. No-one will see it after it's installed so I don't see any point in putting a lot of effort into it.

Here's the tank after cleanup and paint.

And here it is installed in the chassis.

And lastly, the fuel filter mount cleaned, painted and installed.

Wiring is out.

2009-05-07T09:35:00.002-04:00

I finished removing the wiring harness. This entails pretty much stripping the interior completely. Since the Mustang is either going to salvage or become a racer when I'm finished, I didn't bother with removing the nasty carpet to get to the wiring. My razor knife did a quick job of hacking through it and this made the job a lot easier.

But man, there's a lot of wiring behind the dash. There's this huge knot of sticky-goo covered wires that feed all manner of mystery boxes back there.

Thankfully it's all out now and I get to look forward to the thrill of dieting the harness later to remove all of the circuits I don't need. For now though, all of the separate harnesses will be plugged together and I'll roll it up and store it somewhere until I need it. That is, unless I wimp out and go with a newer, simpler generic harness from somewhere.

Next up, fuel tank and line removal. Then I can drag the carcass out to its final resting spot and remove the steering rack, lower control arms and rear axle.

BWAAAHAAAHAAAAAA!!!

2009-05-02T22:31:00.002-04:00

Nothing better than an evil laugh when something works out according to plan.

The engine and transmission are OUT! My lovely bride and I spend some quality time on Friday night and got them out.

I had most everything unhooked before she came out but she still spotted a couple of things I missed.

Then we attached the new Harbor Freight engine leveler and raised it slightly.

A few more checks to make sure it was free and up it went some more.

A bit of persuasion with a breaker bar and it came clear of the radiator support. And then it was out!

Here I am after a successful operation separating the engine from the transmission.

And the bare engine bay. I'll get the steering pump and rack out soon but it was easier to leave them in for now.

Today I got the clutch and flywheel removed and mounted the engine on the stand for cleanup and storage. I also cleaned the 20+ years of scum off of the transmission. Surprisingly the rear main seal on the engine isn't leaking - all of the oil drippage appears to have come from the valve covers.

The PCV screen appears to be plugged solid so that probably contributed to the leaks as well. That will be replaced when I install the Explorer intake anyway so I'm not too worried about it.

That's about it for now. Sunday should see me finish removing the wiring harness and I may have time to drop out the gas tank.

Donor teardown started

2009-04-29T21:16:00.003-04:00

I got the second coat of paint on the frame and it's been drying for a few days. It's supposed to cure for 14 days so I've moved Morton the donor Mustang into the garage to begin the teardown.

BTW, here are a couple of pictures of the trusty steed since I never posted any previously.

Before I brought it inside I did a radiator flush. While running the engine to circulate the flush, the car finally ran out of gas. Let me explain - the gas gauge has not worked since I got the car and I had no idea of how much gas was in the tank or what the driving range was. I'd been cruising around in the car the night before so I guess I'm lucky it didn't run out then. After adding about 3/4 gallon of gas, it started right up and I finished the radiator flush and backed it into the garage.

I collected all of the antifreeze and flushed goo into plastic bottles and hauled them to the hazardous waste area at the local dump. This allowed the engine plenty of time to cool.

Upon returning I started as per the FFR manual and removed the radiator and fan. The manual then says to remove the steering rack.

I'm looking into the engine bay and wondering why I should fight my way around and under the engine to get to the steering when the engine will be coming out later anyway. So, as is my habit, I skipped ahead in the manual and started working on the wiring harnesses instead.

I never realized just how much wire was in a car. I've got the ECU out and the engine harness removed from under the dash but it's all still connected to the engine. At this point I don't see a need to unwire everything.

The front light harness is completely out. The rear light harness is mostly out to where it goes along the rocker panel. To get to this point, most of the rear interior has been loosened, removed and carelessly tossed back inside. :-D

Here's what the inside of the hatch looks like right now.

I still have to remove the front seats and dash to get that wiring out but that should be about it.

My lovely bride has said she's going to help me pull the engine on Friday night. That will be a MAJOR step in the right direction. Once that's out, I can loosen all of the connections for the lower front control arms and rear axle and then move the car outside to it's final resting place before I strip them out. I haven't figured out how to move it with no wheels so that's why the final dis-assembly will happen outside.

Where I live, I'm allowed one inoperable car on my property and the Mustang will be it. To try to minimize the impact on home values, it will be stored behind another car and covered in tarps. Once the FFR is complete and titled, I can get rid of the carcass, but I've heard horror stories of titling hassles if the Police Inspector can't examine the donor vehicle. I just don't want to take a chance so I'll keep it for a while. Maybe I'll put up some fence to hide it.

So that's it for this update. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the engine and transmission out by this weekend.

Painting begun

2009-04-07T08:50:00.004-04:00

After the drilling and mods I started prepping the frame for paint.

This entailed numerous wipedowns with Xylene to clean off all of the mill scale and oil. It also allowed me to find some places where I'd missed welding slag and other sharp edges (OUCH!) and take care of those.

Xylene is nasty stuff. Make sure you're working in a WELL VENTILATED area. I had all of my garage doors open and a fan blowing from behind me towards the open doors the whole time.

I went through several pairs of nitrile gloves, rubber gloves and supposedly "chemical resistant" gloves (they weren't) during this process. I finally found some truly chemical resistant gloves that stood up to the xylene.

I bought a pack of white shop rags to use for this. The process was to soak the rag with xylene and wipe a tube. When the rag got dirty (1-2 passes) I would turn it to a clean side and continue. Once the whole thing was dirty it got tossed into a dedicated trash bag and I started with another clean rag. I went through at least 50 rags doing this and I probably went over the frame 4 times in total before the rags came out clean.

Once the rags showed no more residue I sanded the shinier metal bits to give a bit of tooth for the paint to hold. Looking back I should probably have used a more aggressive paper but I didn't have any. One more wipedown to clean the sanding residue and I was ready to begin.

Let me state for the record that this frame is really well built. It appears to contain somewhere around 17 miles of tubing in total. And I've painted every single mile of it.

Once.

And it needs two coats.

I'm using Hammerite Rust Cap hammered silver paint for the frame. I like the looks of the hammered finish and it hides a lot of imperfections.

It also, as I subsequently found out, requires repainting in either under 4 hours or after 14 days. Since it took me about 10 hours to apply the first coat, I missed that "under 4 hours" window. So now I'm waiting 14 days for the paint to fully cure so I can put on a second coat.

The biggest challenge is to make sure that every side of every tube and every joint is painted. I missed a couple of places initially and had to go back and touch them up later. But I've come up with a more organized approach for the second coat.

I'm going to place a small tape marker on every single tube and bracket. When I get to that part I'll remove the marker and paint all sides of that particular piece. In another week I'll be able to see how that works out.

The other concern (excluding standing on my head painting upside down) is painting the underside of the main 4" round tubes. Those will be painted everywhere but where they're sitting on the jackstands. Once I get the suspension on the car and it's sitting on its wheels, I'll get under it and touch up those 4 spots. They already have one coat of paint on them so the second one will just be added protection and to blend in.

Wish me luck.

My wife suggested that I just go for the powdercoat and deal with the color next time.

Next time?!?!

Let's get some footroom in here!

2009-03-27T09:01:00.009-04:00

I've gotten all of the holes drilled in the factory mounted aluminum and I only broke one drill bit and dulled two others. These were supposed to be GOOD bits too. Oh well...

Since finishing that, I started on modifications to the frame. The stock drivers side footbox has a curved tube at the bottom with another hoop that ties into it from the vertical support. Here's a picture of it.

That design seriously compromises foot room for the driver in the pedal box. If you look closely you can see the wasted space behind that curve. I cut out the curved parts and welded in some new pieces to square off the corner so now it looks like this.

The in-between is a bit scary looking - First I cut the curved tubes out.

Then I had to rotate the frame all around since I don't weld very well upside down - okay I'm not a great welder anyway but I'm really bad upside down.

But the finished product turned out okay. I added a gusset in the corner and also sleeved the inside of the tubes where I put them together. When I bought the tubing to change this, I got some extra tubing that would fit snugly inside. The outer structural tubing is 1.5" 0.120 so I got some 1.25" 0.090 tubing for the sleeves. It fits nice and snug - no play at all.

When I cut the outer pieces I drilled a hole about one inch from the end and then slid the inner tube in and rosette welded it in place. That made it easy to line up the new tubing and gave a backing to the welds.

Here's the finished product.

As for the final appearance, a friend of mine who is a professional welder once told me that there's no weld so ugly that a grinder can't fix it. I'm a firm believer in that.

Drilling, drilling, drilling...

2009-03-19T09:03:00.005-04:00

I've been busy drilling holes. LOTS AND LOTS of holes.

I've removed about half of the factory installed aluminum panels so far and I'm drilling the mounting holes as I go. I'm using 3" spacing in most places. The floor pans are getting 2" spacing since they have to support weight. And I recently saw a post on FFCars that said to use 1" spacing where two aluminum panels meet so I'm doing that as well. That all adds up to lots of holes. I haven't killed any drill bits yet but they're begging for mercy.

And my homemade rivet hole spacing marker works just great.

Since we had a warm day I also did a bit of prep work on the brakes. I taped of the friction surface to protect it and shot the rotor hats black. The outside edges will be done in silver after the black cures completely. I also painted the caliper brackets black. Once I get the calipers cleaned and taped, they'll be done in red - hopefully this weekend.

I also got the spindles and spindle adapters cleaned up. Those got a coat of Hammerite Silver to match what will be going on the frame.

Finally getting started

2009-03-12T08:46:00.004-04:00

No pictures, but tonight I got things moved around and I feel like I'm finally able to get started on this project.

I got the frame moved to the 'working' side of the garage, the Miata moved to the 'non-working' side and the body stored over the Miata. It's kind of cozy but it works.

Once the frame was in place I traced outlines on the aluminum panels and started pulling them off. I'm going to drill all of the aluminum panels, reinstall them and drill all of the holes in the frame before I paint it.

I'm also going to make some mods before I paint it - driver's footbox, multiple grounding bolts and cut out the trunk support for a dropped-butt mod. Maybe some other stuff as well - I'll make it up as I go along.

I still have to disassemble my donor but that will come after I get the frame painted. That will provide plenty of curing time for the paint.

I also got two gallons of white vinegar to try as a rust remover. I read about it on the internet so it must be true. :-D

And I have to say, it works! I got a 5-gallon pail and dumped the vinegar into it. Then I put two fairly rusty brake rotors in there. Within an hour I was able to brush away a good amount of rust. I left them in there overnight so they should be nice and clean tonight. I really should have washed them down with Simple Green or some other cleaner first but I just didn't think about it. I'll clean the other parts before they go in the vinegar bath.

Lastly, I made my rivet spacing guides. I bought some 0.75" aluminum bar at Lowes. I cut it into 2 20" pieces. Then, starting 1-inch from the end, I marked 2" increments on one piece and 3" increments in the other. Then I took out my trusty drill and drilled 1/8" holes at each mark. Voila! Instant rivet spacing guides.

Body off!

2009-03-09T10:05:00.005-04:00

I got the body off of the frame Friday night and started tracing some of the aluminum panels for drilling.

Saturday we hit the junkyard and I scored the full disc brake setup off of a 1995 Mustang so that will be swapped on instead of using the earlier Fox rear drum brakes. While the benefit of 4-wheel discs is often debated, I prefer both the pedal feel and the looks of them. I already have the 5-lug rear axles to swap in so this completes my junkyard parts hunting for brakes. I'll have to order the brackets to mount the rear discs to the 8.8 but that's no problem. And I'm going to get a new 1993 Cobra master cylinder to top it all off.

Unfortunately that was about all I got done. While we were at the yard, I received a call that my mother had returned to the hospital. So my wife and I headed home, cleaned up and spent 5.5 hours in the emergency room with her until they finally got a bed ready and moved her to it.

So anyway, here are a few pictures with the body removed.

Oh look! An update!

2009-03-05T19:53:00.012-05:00

I'm finally back to it. Everyone seems to have recovered health-wise so I can get back to work on my Roadster.

I've been building a body buck. But this one has a couple of differences from the others I've seen.

First, it's a convertible. :-) The extended legs can be removed and it then becomes the right height for doing body work.

The other difference is that I cut out the middle rather drastically. The reason for that is so I can park a Miata under it. I don't want to have to drag the buck and body in and out of the garage every time I want to work on the chassis, so they will be stored on the opposite side of the garage.

Hopefully I'll be removing the body and putting it on the buck tomorrow (Friday) night when my youngest son and his friend come over to help me. The body will be parked over the chassis for a while as I still need to strip the donor Mustang.

Once that's done, the chassis goes to the "big" side of the garage and the Miata and body buck will go where the chassis currently resides. Like so.

Confusing, eh? It'll all work out...

The other BIG news is that we're getting a dog (a Bavarian Moosehound.) Along with the dog, we're getting a storage shed.

While these two events wouldn't normally be related, were going to use a part of the shed for a doghouse. It's an 8x12 with dual doors on the front. I'm going to cut a doggie door on the outer wall and then build a partition wall inside so that the Flash the dog can reside in there. He'll be separated from the yard paraphernalia by this wall so both he, and it, are safe from each other.

Having the shed will allow me to remove all of the yardwork implements, lawnmowers, fertilizers and other assorted lawn related nasties from the garage. YAY! That's going to pick up quite a bit of space in there.

So things are slowly starting to progress again. At this rate, maybe I can actually start on the chassis in March.

...

2009-02-24T08:21:00.001-05:00

Sadly, not much is happening right now. The weather has been too cold to accomplish much (some day I'll get a decent garage heater) and there are some personal issues going on that are taking the majority of my free(?) time.

I got a bit more done on the body buck on the weekend but I still need to attach two more legs. Then I'll need help turning it over as it's big and bulky. Soon, my pretty. Soon...

Accomplishments - some big, some not-so-big

2009-02-18T07:49:00.005-05:00

I got some more cleaning/painting/straightening done in the garage this weekend. It's beginning to look like an actual work space instead of a disaster overflow. There's still more stuff to be moved to the basement - so that can be the disaster instead ;-)

The majority of the weekend was spend supervising/helping/kibitzing as my wife installed a complete new suspension in our 1993 Miata. She's going to run that in autocross this year and the 183K-mile stock suspension just wasn't cutting it. She wanted to install the suspension herself and she did. I only did grunt work when she couldn't get a bolt loose or advised when there was something she didn't understand in the directions. She did VERY WELL with it. Now it's about an inch lower with new springs, shocks and anti-sway bars.

I had Monday off due to President's Day and I took that opportunity to cut the end pieces for the body buck. OSB is some nasty, splintery stuff and I don't like it. But, the ends are cut and now I just need to get the rest of the 2x4s to build the frame. And I finally finished the inventory of all of the boxes of Roadster parts from Factory Five Racing. That's a huge relief. Now I need to call them to tell them what was missing.

And hope for warmer weather...

2009-02-12T12:56:00.002-05:00

Allergies are already beating up on me. Sigh...

Because of that I didn't get into the garage to work on any cleaning last night. However I got through the inventory of about half of the boxes from FFR. So far I'm only missing one toggle switch, besides the stuff they listed as not-yet-shipped. The only thing I didn't actually verify the count on was the rivet packs. I'd rather buy an extra box at the hardware store than sit and count to make sure they really shipped 1000 rivets in the plastic bag.

Hopefully tonight I can get something constructive done.

FFR 6897 - IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT'S HERE!!!!

2009-02-10T23:01:00.004-05:00

It arrived today!

Hiding in the truck.

The snake charmer coaxing it from it's den.

Seeing the light of day.

Easy...easy...

Ah. Safe on the cart.

And finally tucked into my garage and surrounded by junk. The other side of the garage is undergoing a cleanup/painting/rearranging that should be done this weekend. Once that's complete, the FFR will move to that side where it will have some breathing and working room.

I ordered it with an unpainted frame, passenger roll bar, and a 3-link rear suspension.

2009-02-06T15:22:00.004-05:00

My FFR Roadster is supposed to be built on February 14.

So today I get a call from Colin Stewart of Stewart Transport asking if I want it delivered on Tuesday, February 10 instead. I asked how this was possible since it's not scheduled to be built until the 14th.

"I pulled in a few favors." said Colin. It seems that he has a truck coming this way a week earlier than planned and he wanted to try to fill it. It's okay if I don't want it yet though.

HOLY CRAP!!!! YES, TWIST MY ARM. I'LL TAKE IT SOONER!

The garage isn't ready.
It isn't painted.
It isn't cleaned out.
There's not enough room for everything that has to be in there.
My donor isn't torn down yet.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh the terrible problems I have.

This will be a busy weekend. Where I was originally going to be painting, I'll now be rearranging. I've got to move two cars to make room for the kit and figure a way to maneuver it around in the garage since I need the 'big' side to disassemble the Mustang.

Once the Mustang is torn apart I'll have to move the Roadster to the 'big' side so I can put the Miata back in the 'small' side.

My house already looks like a used car dealership. With two more cars out of the garage it'll be even worse.

Anybody want to buy a CRX Si?

In the beginning...

2009-02-05T19:43:00.003-05:00

(image used without permission)

Well, here's my blog. I've successfully avoided them for oh-so-many years but I figure this is the best way to chronicle the build of my Factory Five Racing Roadster Mk 3.1. It will serve as a record of my progress as well as a history to be submitted when I try to title the car.

It all started around 1965 when I was but 7 years old. I saw a picture of a 1965 Shelby Cobra in a magazine and showed it to my father, saying he should buy one.

Sadly, he didn't.

Being so young, I forgot about it shortly after that.

Fast forward to 1976. The Gumball Rally movie came out and being a car freak I had to go and see it. Once again I was smitten by the look and sound of the Cobra (I recently found out that two different cars were actually used in the movie.) To this day I still drool when I see that movie - pretty frequently as I bought my own copy a few years ago.

Moving on to 1978. I was in college and was taking my at-the-time girlfriend home for the summer. I was, of course, jabbering about cars. She mentioned that her father had a friend who had an old car and would I like to see it? Of course I would! So we went over there to meet him. He opened up the garage door AND THERE SAT A SHELBY COBRA!!! He offered me a ride and I was in the car before he could even finish asking. He fired it up, pulled out onto the street and punched the gas pedal.

OH...........HOLY............CRAP!!!!!

I had a sh!t-eating grin on my face for the rest of the week after that ride.

Shortly thereafter the girl broke up with me so I never got to go back to see the man and his Cobra again.

Every few years I'd get the bug and check the kit prices but they were still out of reach.

Fast forward again to 2008. I'm now 50 years old, somewhat settled in my life and my kids are grown. Digging around in some web sites I came across several different Cobra enthusiast boards including ClubCobra and ffcars. Through those I started researching prices and construction of the various kits. After considering a number of them, and weeding out quite a few due to price constraints, I settled on a Factory Five Racing Roadster. Visually it's styled after the 1965 AC Motors body style used by Shelby for his Cobras. Due to litigation from Shelby Enterprises, Factory Five can't and won't call it a Cobra but that's what it looks like, and that's what I'll be mostly calling it in this blog.

Anyway, FFR has an affordable kit and the list of included parts is tremendous. I especially like the frame they use - it appears to be extremely strong and well built. The body has a few spots that aren't quite original looking, but they can be fixed. They're so minor though that most people would never notice the difference anyway.

The FFR concept is that you take a donor car - in this case a 1987 to 1993 Ford Mustang - and use various pieces in conjunction with their kit and you come up with a Roadster. Having rebuilt several vehicles in the past, it sounds like it shouldn't be too much of a problem for me. I love to tinker so this is right up my alley.

So the first order of business was to find a donor. I read numerous newspaper and online ads and finally ran across a car that seemed usable. It's a 1989 Mustang GT with a supposedly rebuilt engine. And when I got it in November, it was filthy and ran like crap. The remaining two-tone paint is a faded red on top and titanium on the bottom. Interspersed freely within those are black, yellow and rust. It has a red interior which is in surprisingly good shape given the appearance of the outside. But it has a 5.0L engine, T-5 transmission and 8.8" rear axle and those are the main parts I need.

We named it Morton.

It's actually so ugly that I haven't taken any pictures of it yet.

With a concerted effort and much research, primarily at sbftech.com, I got the engine running well. It doesn't seem to burn oil and the exhaust is surprisingly non-noxious so I guess it's actually in pretty good shape.

So with the donor procured, the whining started in earnest. I did my best to convince my wife that life wouldn't be worth living if I couldn't build a Cobra replica. I moped, I cajoled, I whined and finally I mentioned that Factory Five was having a sale. Ah, the magic word.

The sale was a $2000 discount off of the kit price, or a bundle of upgrades, most of which I didn't want from them anyway. So she relented and on January 29, 2009 I ordered my Factory Five Racing 1965 Roadster Mk 3.1 base kit. Boy, that's a mouthful. I specified a bare, un-powdercoated frame as there are a couple of modifications I want to make, a passenger side rollbar and the 3-link rear suspension upgrade. The ready date of my kit is February 14, 2009 - what a Valentines present for me!!!

I'll take copious pictures when it arrives and I'll even get some of Morton the Mustang before and during the dis-assembly process.

For now, I'm working frantically on cleaning and rearranging my garage. This whole thing is happening much, MUCH faster than I thought it would so I'm scurrying around trying to get everything ready. The weather is not cooperating though. It's been at or below freezing pretty much since I placed the order. With no heat in the garage I can't stay out there too long and I can't paint. But this weekend is supposed to be around 60* so I'm hoping to get a lot done.

Well, that's enough for my introductory post. Stay tuned as I'll be adding commentary, pictures, random thoughts and way too much babbling as I go on.