Moved!

December 18, 2014 -

  Here's a photo of the roll bar work I got done yesterday.  Today I got the LeMans gas cap on and connected it to the fuel filler connection tube.  That's the big shiny thing on the right rear quadrant of the car and a piece I think is very cool looking.  I remember when I got the shipment, that was one thing I would take out and show people.

  Just in case I got pulled over driving the 5 or 6 blocks to the new garage I bolted up the driver's seat harness.

  It was much colder today than yesterday but still fun to drive!  Here it is right before pulling into the driveway and garage at the new place.

Body

December 17, 2014 -

  This was a big day and I had high hopes.  I put the last of the bulb seal on that needed to go on before the body and put some foam on the sides of the foot boxes.  Here are some past shots before the body went on.  The sun rays were kind of cool and that's the body buck in the background.

  This one from the rear is funny cause my shadow makes it look like Homer Simpson took this photo.

My Dad helped me put the body on.  Thanks Dad!

  What you aren't seeing in these photos is what a giant pain the rear quick jack bolts are to put on.  You need to drop the gas tank in order to put the bolt through.  (And I only found that after fiddling for an hour and then calling Factory Five. [Pro tip: The passenger side tank strap is really hard to get all the way up to where it needs to meet the bolt hole. I used a two by four on its side between the strap and the jack which both lifted the tank and pushed the strap up into position.])  In the afternoon I got the roll bars on with their cool grommets. (Would definitely recommend them as they look great.)  (Photo tomorrow when its lighter.)  Lastly, the car didn't start. Maybe I loosened the fuel pump connection when lowering the gas tank. Will have to figure it out tomorrow.  Guess the car isn't getting moved today.

License Plate Wires & Horns

December 15, 2014 -

  From the FFR manual I had the license plate wires laying like this over the passenger side trunk wall.

  I thought it was pretty obvious that the body will pinch those wires (in the black plastic tubing.)  My savior internet friend Dale told me you need to drill a hole in the trunk floor and run them up through a grommet so I did that like so:

  You can see how dark it's getting trying to work at the end of the day in December with no lights.  I also mounted the high and low horns behind the radiator on the driver's side.

  I'll try and get a lighter photo but that is them above the green wires.  I also put the foam and bulb seal on and am pretty much ready for an extra hand to help put the body on and then get it into a lit garage!

Roll Bars Drilled

December 13, 2014 -

  I finally finished drilling the roll bar mounts.  Again, this was the hardest drilling of the entire project.  I guess that is good as you want some hard steel in your roll bars to protect you.  After the drilling I pulled the roll bars off and cleaned off some flaky metal.  I also thought I might get the drill shavings out of the mounts with a handy retracting magnet I have.  Here are the shavings from inside the mount.

   

Roll Bars Attached

December 9, 2014 -

  I finally got the roll bars to attach.  The trick here is that you need to file off a bunch of the powder coat paint on the rear roll bar mount so that the rear leg can slide down far enough so the hoop roll bar can come all the way down.  Then you can pull the rear leg up and into the hoop roll bar's mount.

  Once this is in, you can start drilling the mounts.  Like the manual says, start small and work your way up to the 5/16" bit.  This is the *hardest* drilling of the entire project I have felt so far.  Have a plugged in drill or very charged up batteries and have some sharp bits! I broke quite a few bits doing this (some big ones too.) If a bit is really stuck into the far side like I had, one tip it to use a hammer and punch and punch it through. Hopefully that won't happen to you. The above picture is to show the nice joinery from the Tangent internal roll bar attachment kit.

Aluminum Panels

December 7, 2014 -

  I put in the rest of the driver's side inner top panel on the footbox.  There's a cutout hole in it which I decided not to rivet in but screwed in as it seemed like one might want access to that later on (for reasons like adjusting the balance bar on the brakes.)

  I think you can tell in the above photo that I had some more light to work with today.  :-)  Also, big thanks to my neighbor Zack for letting me use an extension cord to run the air compressor that runs my riveter.

  Before the body goes on I thought I might go around and put in some panels that might be hard to drill holes for once the body is on.  Here are two oval patch panels in the trunk I put on.  Again here I used screws because these cover the fuel level sender in the fuel tank and the fuel pump.  I've had a couple times where the fuel pump connector was iffy and needed some adjusting so I didn't want to rivet myself away from opening this up in the future.  I may later on use a screw with a flatter head though.  These were the screws that came with the car holding a bunch of aluminum panels in place.

  Next up is to finish fitting the roll bars to get their mounts drilled.  I think bulb seal goes around some spots on the car and then the body! Then it'll get moved to the garage I'm at which has power.

Roll Bars and Driver Footbox

December 6, 2014 -

  I worked on assembling the roll bar attachment kit from Tangent. It looks like this on both ends:

  As the big nut is screwed tighter it pulls the bolt head down which flares out the vertical metal pieces.  Inside the roll bar this will lock onto the insides of the tube that is the roll bar.  Then you just screw both roll bar parts together on the long threaded rod you see going out of the picture above.

  I also worked on putting in the driver's side top inner footbox panel.  I got it fit and partially drilled but I think from this picture you can see, I ran out of daylight. (I'm working in a garage now with no power.)

Windshield Wiper Motor

November 30, 2014 -

  I started to give up on being able to put in the windshield wiper motor because there was so little space available due to the heater on the passenger side of the engine bay firewall.  When I mentioned bagging it to my internet friend and fellow MK4 builder Dale, he said, "You've come this far on it, might as well figure it out. Also, are windshield wipers required in your state?"  So I got motivated and worked it in there until it fit.  I felt pretty good about it afterwards and knew I shouldn't have been thinking of giving up on it.  Thanks again Dale!  Here's the wiper motor just left of the black heater:

  Next up, I siliconed and riveted the outter top panel of the driver's side foot box.  Thank you Michele for the help riveting.

  While helping and unbeknownst to me, Michele snapped a few of me working.  See, I do read the directions, even if they don't always make sense.

  Here's a rare one of me using gloves to avoid cutting myself on the aluminum panel edges:

  I need to move this car project to another garage soon so I am motivated to get the body on as that would be a pain to move to the other garage (with the body buck.)  It would be a lot easier to move the car (drive it? [it's only a few blocks...]) with the body on.  The wiper motor and that footbox panel needed to go on before the body as I thought those would be hard to access once the body is on.  I think there's one more panel to rivet on (the driver's side top inner footbox panel) and drilling bolt holes for the roll bars before I can put the body on.  (So close!)  Unfortunately, the rear leg of the roll bar isn't fitting on the frame mount.  That's the next problem to solve.