Hood

December 27, 2015 -

  I put together the hood hinges and mounted the hood today. Yesterday I put in the 8 of the shorter rubber bumpers to hold the hood off the body. I used screws and nuts there so they can be removed for paint. The hood hinges took some extra washers from the diagrams in the directions because with just one they were very loose. I needed help holding the hood while I riveted it to the hinge. Thanks Michele! I probably should have done the riveting off the car and attached bolts cause you end up having to widen a rivet hole while someone is holding it. (Sorry Michele.) At this point the piston struts do a nice job of lifting the hood but when it's down flat the front is up a little. I think I need some fine tuning of the hinges to get it to sit flat.

  Note from the last blog post, I did get a new flasher at the local auto parts store for $6 and it works although it flashes a little faster than the factory five one which is fine I think. For some reason now the turn signals aren't working.... so that's something to track down next. (Subsequent note; turns out the turn signals work just fine. The key needs to be in the ON position for them to work. This is the same position that has the fuel pump running. All the other lights seem to work in other key positions so I'm not sure why it's this way but I guess you don't need turn signals if the car isn't on, whereas you might need hazards.)

Headlights

December 6, 2015 -

  I have finally moved into the new house and gotten most things where I want them so there's no excuse to not be working on the car now.  I had been stuck for so long on the headlights not working I was shirking from going back and debugging it. I spent a little time on the phone with Factory Five and they gave me some great pointers.  First they made me realize that what I had thought was the headlight high beam switch was the hazard switch and that when I flipped it and my turn signals got brighter it was the second filament in the turn signals coming on and not flashing. They said swap the hazard and turn signal flashers and viola, my hazards flashed and my turn signals didn't work. So they're sending me one more working flasher. The flashers are the shiny cylinders in the fuse box.

Next, the headlights won't work at all unless there is a high beam switch installed. The switch is up or down and one position completes a circuit with the brown high beam wire and high beam indicator (blue dash light) and the other position completes a circuit with the red low beam wire. I didn't even have a hole in the dash for this switch! So since I had already laid other switches out uniformly and this would clearly be a one off if it were anywhere within reach I decided to put it inside the wheel.  It isn't in the way of my hands and I can switch it by extending a finger from the wheel without taking my hand off the wheel which I thought was nice.

Battery Post Clamp

September 14, 2015 -

  Long time and no posts. Sorry. I've been building a house and it is about a month away from completion so that's been taking up most of my time. I have done a few more electrical things.  The brake lights weren't working and so I found that the switch that the brake pedal arm is suppose to depress needed to be moved closer to the pedal arm so that better contact and button compression was made.  I also found some weather pack connections not all the way in and making contact.  I've also learned to check fuses. (A fuse being blown kept some lights from coming on.) Lastly, there was also a poor connection in the brown plug from the main wiring harness to the front wiring harness. I thought about permanently connecting those wires with a butt connector but someone told me that it might be useful to disconnect those for future body work.
  Today I put a nice battery cable clamp on the positive cable.  This fits the battery post well and has a nut to loosen for easy removal. Previously there was an ill-fitting ring that was crimped to a cable with a shutoff switch someone gave me. The shutoff switch is nice but that terminal ring wasn't. Here's the new setup:

  The negative terminal already had a nice connector with the grounding strap that goes to the frame. I taped up the steel bar that holds the battery in the battery box in case one were to accidentally make contact there using a wrench to loosen the clamp nut.

Dash Supports

June 24, 2015 -

  I've been working to fit a dual USB charger into one of the support braces for the dash.  There is a rectangular hole in the braces and it was just a little too big for the Blue Sea Systems USB charger that I got on Amazon.  So I cut two scrap pieces of aluminium and riveted them on to make the hole smaller.

  Then I decided to use some spare dash cover material to cover up the part of the aluminium that one might see.  I think carpeting will cover up the vertical part that attaches to the frame.

  And because it's fun (and to test the fuel filter relocation) I went for a brief test drive with Michele's mom Terry.

Test Run

May 31, 2015 - June 1, 2015 -

  With the seat heaters wired in, the seats bolted in, and no wires dragging around under the car I thought it was time for a quick test run.  It was a pretty hot day so I forgot to test the seat heaters.  Here's Michele and I backing out:

  I think she was happy there was no pushing the car involved in this outing.  However we did hear a brushing noise from the rear passenger area.  (By the way this was a trip just circling the block.)  I saw afterwards the tail of the strap holding the fuel filter was touching the rear passenger tire and I think on bumps the filter itself rubbed the tire.  So I trimmed the strap and moved the filter (again).  Fortunately I saved some of the 5/16" fuel hose and had a spare piece that was long enough to move the filter back as far as it can possibly go.  It should be out of the way now but if its not I will have to engineer something up.  I would say the instructions weren't clear about moving this to the absolute rear but then again maybe they didn't expect as big a tire as I have (although I think people are often putting these wide tires on this car....)

Driver's Seat

May 20, 2015 -

  It's been too long. I have been out doing other things with the nicer weather I guess. Yesterday I finished bolting in the driver's seat. This was a bit of a job since I put in seat adjusters and had trouble working around the big 4" frame tube. I also had to do some hole drilling and wire soldering for the seat heater. Now I just have to ground the seat heaters and put in a new fuse box for them since the existing fuse box is full.

Passenger Seat

March 29, 2015 -

  I bought another box of hush mat to add a little more in the cockpit and to do the trunk later.  I found some cheaper on Amazon but didn't notice it was the black finish and not the shiny metallic finish.  I guess it doesn't matter if its getting covered with carpeting.  After that I mounted some slide rails to the bottom of the passenger seat.  This will probably never be adjusted but I think its a good practice run for the driver's side and this way the two seats are at the same height.  Speaking of height, my excellent advisor Dale recommended I raise the front of the seat 1/2" - 1" to make it more comfortable.  I stacked a couple washers and rubber washers as cushioning in the front of the seat where it meets the slide rail adding about 3/4".  Lastly I routed the cobra seat heater wiring through the transmission tunnel and made a hole in the side of the tunnel for the seat heater switch just above the range of the emergency brake. I haven't wired the seat heater to power yet cause I need to put a 10 Amp fuse there and instead of doing it inline I just bought a 6 fuse panel so that I can have fuses for both seat heaters, the USB charger, the fog lights, and anything else I might think of... more cockpit floor lighting or trunk light?