License Plate Holder Part 1

June 16, 2016 -

  Unfortunately Factory Five doesn't leave enough space between the trunk handle and the license plate holder/light for a typical 6" x 12" license plate.  Some choose to cut the plate which I hear might be illegal in some places if not all.  Some choose a different trunk opening mechanism such as a cockpit switch that pops the trunk lid open so there is no handle on the actual trunk.  JKleiner on the forums suggested modifying the license plate holder/light and that is the route I took.  It wasn't hard but took a little patience.  This is after most of the modifications.  You can see three holes in the light assembly.  They are where I drilled out the old rivets that held this all together.  The two close holes in the middle held the insulating board and the hot conductor for the lights, so that got moved up 3/8" and re-riveted.  The plate that holds the two bulbs also got moved up 3/8" and you can see the hole on the right but the left side hole is covered up by the buld holding plate.  See how that bolt coming out at you in the middle is off center low?  It used to be off center high so this bulb holding plate got flipped around and the bolt coming out at you is in the same place relative to the back of the assembly.

  Then you can cut a slot in the clear plastic and put it all back together.  The Dremel will tend to melt some of the plastic but it can be cleaned up with a file.

  I slid the test plate I had in there and I thought it could use a little more room so I used the Dremel to cut a little notch in the plate that holds the bulbs so the license plate could slide up just a little further into the assembly.  (Look closely.)

  To finish up the JKleiner mod we need to cut some aluminium and drill holes so that you can attach a license plate with its pre-drilled holes higher up that the stock holder positions the plate.  That is why this is part one.  I suspect a slight trimming of the bottom of the license plate might be necessary but if it is, it should be very slight.  And for the ultra observant, yes, that is my new wedding ring in the first picture. :-)

Dead Pedal - Heater Wiring - Body Finish

June 11, 2016 -

  I haven't posted in a little while but that doesn't mean I wasn't doing anything.  I'm not sure if this is in the right order but I used Comet, hot water, and Scotch brite (rough side of sponge) to scrub off the wax left from the fiberglass mold process.  Then I used a little drum roll sanding piece on a Dremel to take down the edge that sticks up from the body.  Its not a seam of fiberglass panels coming together but rather the excess fiberglass that was pushed into the seam of the mold in which the body was formed.  I didn't quite take it all the way down to be smooth as I think I'll leave that to the paint and body shop but I didn't bring it down so that it won't cut you.  (Yes I cut my finger pretty good on it while scrubbing before putting gloves on.)

  I also cleaned up the wiring under the dash on the passenger side.  There was a lot of wiring for the heater controls just hanging down.  I tackled this by drilling a hole in the top of the inside of the interior of the glove box.  Then I created a zip tie loop through that.  Then I created two more zip tie loops making a chain behind the glove box that reach down and hold up all the wires.  The chain was needed to cover the long length from the top of the glove box.  I did this because that was the center of the horizontal droop of the wires and there was nothing else I could find to loop a zip tie to up above.  Note that I made a hole to the right of the glove box's locking slot.  The lock's rotating tab comes up and into it's slot from the left and I didn't want the zip tie to interfere with that action.  Here's a close-up of the zip tie hole. (This is a pretty custom idea I just came up with on the spot. The forum might've had better or different ideas but this seems to work well.)

  Here is what the cockpit looks like with the wires cleaned up.  The level of the camera is the top of the seats (pretty low) so if you can't see wires there, then no one should see them sitting in the seats.  The controls are just clipped onto the dash there for now. I'm not convinced yet on where I want to put them.

  I spent several days of charging and cutting with the Dremel's cutting wheel to cut through the left side of the driver's footbox to put in the dead pedal I bought.  I guess one could make their own dead pedal and maybe even one with a flex point so the angle of the pedal could change but I bought this one on Dark Water's custom parts site and I'm pretty happy with it so far.  After multiple charge cycles I had the front edge, top and bottom cut for the square hole. I decided to leave the flap that was cut because, it fit, it had sound dampening and heat shield covering on it already, and why no have something stronger if you can?  Today I finished drilling the holes and riveting in the dead pedal box.  I cut myself a couple times before putting gloves on.  (This should sound familiar from earlier in this post although that was a couple weeks ago before. But word of advice, wear gloves.)  Drilling and riveting in the footbox was a contorted job but hey what isn't in this little car?  I think it came out nice though.  And just those two extra inches bumped out for your left foot feels nice!

Passenger Door

May 6, 2016 -

  A couple nights ago I worked at fitting the passenger door.  This was a lot harder than the driver's side door.  This one took a lot of sanding to get it to fit ok where the top of the door meets the rear body panel part.  At this stage you really want the top two corners to fit with the body well.  Later you can move the main body in or out some to get the bottom corners to look right.
  Today I put the striker and the latch on.  Fairly similar to the driver's side here.  I ended up using the latch spacers on both the passenger and driver sides.  I think riders will feel a lot safer now.  :-)  Here is a picture of both doors latched.

Door Latch 1

May 1, 2016 -

  I've attached the driver's side door and did some sanding down of the edges on it with a Festool random orbit sander and connected dust collector while I wore a 3M respirator.  That got the door edges fitting pretty well. (I'm sure it all changes some after painting.)  Then I attached the stiker and then the latch.  (I did grease up the insides of the latch mechanism while I had it open per the instructions.)  Here's a picture of the latch attached to the door and locked onto the striker.  I show it closed to show it is all lined up.

Windshield Part 2

April 17, 2016 -

  I wish this advice was in the manual, but in order to bolt the windshield on the driver's side you need to remove the fuse panel. That made it a lot easier. On the passenger side it's more difficult, especially if you have your engine ECU and a windshield wiper motor mounted in this area like I do. And definitely try not to drop washers and nuts in the dark spaces between the body and the frame that you can't see. Anyways, the trick to the passenger side was to put your arm and socket or wrench behind that ECU. Yes you will still have to tighten it from 1 foot away moving one click at a time without being able to see what you are doing and you might even have to lay superman style across the engine like I did, but you can do it. Here it is all tightened down.

  I forgot to mention, in order to drill the holes in the side mounts of the windshield, get a step drill bit that looks like this.

  It works *way* better than your conventional bits!

Windshield Part 1

April 10, 2016 -

  After attaching the windshield side supports, I was able to get help fitting the windshield into the car and see how they lined up with the frame mounts for the windshield.  Of course the windshield side mounts were about 3" - 4" too long and prevented the windshield from sitting down on the body.  After pulling it back out, trimming the windshield side mounts with a Dremel and a hacksaw it fit in nicely.  This is to show you how much had to be trimmed off on both sides.

  Unfortunately the slots in the body aren't quite far enough forward for the side supports to line up with both holes in the frame mount on each side.  I will need to expand those slots in the body just a little more forward. Here's a shout out to my fiancee and helper Michele for helping me fit it!

Turns out the windshield moved slightly between marking the driver's side and then going over to the passenger side. So I decided to just drill the driver's side, bolt that side in, then mark the passenger side. Turns out the sharpie is pretty easy to wipe off the chrome finish.

Body Dash

March 10, 2016 -

  I haven't gotten a lot done lately. Still wrapping up house build punch list items but I also got another case of the frustrations when the passenger side windshield support wouldn't fit in the slot in the body because it was obstructed by the dash aluminum. I spoke to Factory Five and some others and there are ways to adjust the body. Some that have gone before me highly recommend trimming the body away from the dash covering regardless, so that the fiberglass body isn't digging into the dash. I trimmed off about 1/4" using a Dremel.

  This created a lot of fiberglass dust which is blocking the view of the gap I created between the body and the dash but you can get the idea here.

  I should have done this at the beginning of the project for anything related to cutting the fiberglass but I invested in a decent respirator for this kind of work. I highly recommend it.

  In the end, this didn't help the body move at all and the trick to getting the windshield to fit in the slots is just to lengthen the slots themselves. (More chances to wear the respirator!)