Footbox Panels

October 26, 2014 -

  I riveted on a small patch panel on the driver's side of the transmission tunnel:

  Then I riveted on the outside wall of the driver's side footbox and another patch panel on the front of the footbox.  That panel on the front needed a little filing to get a good fit,

  I also put together a bunch of the gauge light wires and their grounds together with wire nuts.

Dash Related Stuff

October 20, 2014 -

  I put silicone and riveted the dash extension piece on and then cut the dash extension oval cover plate to size with the wire bundles.  I then siliconed and riveted the cover plate on which you can see here:

  I also put the wiper switch in the dash next to the horn button seen here:

  I did have a big update a week and a half ago which I posted on the ffcars forums but not here.  It turns out that Wilwood has updated the design of the rear brake bracket to give the 1/4" of wheel clearance that I've been saying all along they need.  (They had an old design that did this but changed it and it made the caliper touch the inside of the wheel.)  Unfortunately the production time is 4 weeks until these newly designed brackets can be sent out to me.  I'm happy that I don't have to "custom cut" my own bracket though.

Coolant

October 4, 2014 -

  I had a couple of problems getting the coolant system to work right.  First the radiator fan wouldn't come on.  It turns out you need to ground the green wire that goes into the relay in the chassis wiring harness.  It is the green wire with the yellow wire nut in this picture.

  So then the fan came on once the engine warmed up to 195 degrees.  The problem was then that the engine didn't stop warming up.  I had put as much coolant as I could in the fill cap.  I think running the engine pushed around some air in the system though.  Then I opened up the fill cap, was able to put more coolant in and for good measure opened up the driver's side petcock on the radiator and filled through a tube there until the fill cap started to over flow into the over flow tank.  This is what the radiator petcock looks like that I am referring to:

  Now the engine doesn't heat up past about 205 degrees which is a good operating temperature.