Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

APRIL 2006

4/1/2006 - Today was a the big day of sorts. The roadster body has been mounted! Although only temporary before SRP removes it to work his magic, this was great to meet some more people and some valuable tips and information. Meet "Curtis" and "Rich Larsen", my hired helpers for the morning (not pictured was my neighbor, Chris):

Thesse guy's provided a lot of insite on what to begin looking for in terms of body gaps, alignment, and a boat load of other items. However, the biggest issue, was the rear lower control arms. Believe it or not, I had the arms on upside-down or essentially on the wrongs sides!!!! The lower shocks were "above" the arms so the car took on a NHRA stance. I had a feeling this may of been the case ever since the car was put on the wheel dollies back around February; up until then, I wasn't quite sure. In this photo, you can get a sense of the funny car stance:

My new secondary objective today: swap the arms.

After Curtis and Rich had departed just after noon time, my neighbor and I spent the afternoon swapping the rear LCA's and got it all together before 5pm. I didn't readjust the springs so after we set the car back on the ground, we went from 4x4 mode to low-rider mode... ok, not quite that bad but it's looking to be 3" off the ground in this photo (compensating for the dollies.) I'll probably get the adjustments tomorrow:

I placed a jack under the pumpkin and elevated the chassis a bit so that it would set somewhat even with the front:

And finally, the engine shot (ah, there's my buddy Chris!!!!)

I now have 2 weeks in which I will have the lighting mocked up so I can run the electrical wires out to the corners as well as the license plate illumination and backup lamp (Mini-Cooper).

Many thanks to Curtis and Rich for all the help. Looking foward to seeing both their rides when they're ready.

4/2/2006 - Today I spent time adjusting the rear coilovers to lift the rear about even with the front. I'm not entirely certain but the ride height is estimated at about 5.25" but since their on dollys, it's not absolute. I am aiming for a 4" ride height.

After adjusting the rear coilovers, I spent the rest of the day working on the body illumination. It appears the rear tail lights require a slight amount of body modification as there are 2 brass pieces that stick out on the back of the mounting face of each tail light; this raises the flange about 1mm; even with the gasket in place, it's noticable. I proceeed to work on this problem and eventually got them all flush to the body.

After I got these squared away, I worked on the front signal lamps and headlamp assemblies. The headlamps weren't complicated but was time consuming getting the grommets in! But overall, it wasn't bad. And the front signal lamps didn't have the same issue as the rear tail lights.

Below are additional photos I took while the car was 1/2 outside the garage.

4/6/2006 - I've been doing a few little things here and there over the last 4 days. The first was the doors. It turns out my "estimate" on placement was a bit off; about 1-1.5" for both seats. I tried the "clamp-n-bend" methods but after only 1/2" of movment on the passenger side, I just felt it was better to bit the bullet and un-rivet the 2 dozen rivets on the Breeze brackets and try again. The new placement actually isn't too bad; a slight angle (which is what I was originally trying to avoid) and further back for my long legged neighbor. Will hit the driver side this weekend.

Next was the raditaor hoses. This was easy by comparison. I bought 2 Napa hoses, PN: NBH7364 (lower radiator hose, Gates #20603 replacment), and NBH7865, the upper hose for a 5.0L Mustang. Following the FFR instructions everything went in pretty well. The lower hose is only "slightly" taunt but no kinks.... and I haven't even put clamps on it yet. Basically, it was a perfect fit. I still need to obtain about 5 more 1.5" clamps, a T-filler and 16lb. cap. I've decided on the CSR billet T and cap. Will order that shortly.

I also cut the fuel filler tube and place the extension hose on. I've centered the filler cap area around the hole and will be drilling out the holes for the bolts this weekend as well.

I've placed a call to SRP and delivery is set for next week, 4/14/06 (Good Friday). I'm trying to get a few more holes drilled in the body where I think they should be. I've scribed the rear capsule shaped hole for the Mini-Cooper backup lamp. The only thing is, the lamp was designed to be inserted from the rear, not the front as I'm going to do. This would require two things: 1) SRP to radius the front faica and 2) find a way to have it mount from behind. What I may end up doing here is insert it from the front and have a shop fabricate an aluminum trim ring to clean up the sealed lense-to-body seam that will be expose. We'll see what happens.

No pics for now. Maybe more this weekend.

4/8/2006 - Today was a productive day. I mounted both doors, the rear hood and the LeMan's fuel cap. Most of the day was centered on getting holes drilled for the body before it goes to SRP next Friday, 4/14. With the fuel filler neck commpleted and mocked up, I have all the necessary holes for the cap, and even bolted in the ground strap (to help eliminate static electricity during fill-ups.) The OEM gas cap does interfere with the bolt on the LeMan's cap and had to cut out a bit of it to clear; will fill it with some silicone later on.

On a side note, we didn't read the manual and did not know the moutning flange of the cap unscrews from the cap. We tried to be very careful and drill the holes into the flange w/o hitting the cap. But when we went to line up the cap on the body, we noted one hole was in a different position than when we drilled it and the bolt no longer could be inserted! That's when we realized this thing can come off!!! As Homer Simpson would say: D-OH!

One of the other things I was contemplating was the mini-cooper backup lamp. With this in mind, I etched an outline of the lens about 1/4" smaller just in case I messed up cutting the hole, but the more I thought about it, maybe it would be better to let the painter do this work so I left it scribed for now. You can see it just below the center of the trunk.

4/15/2006 - Of all days to update the journal, it's Tax Day. Actually, because it lands on a Saturday, Tax Returns are not due until Monday, 4/17. In any event, today's entry covers Friday's as well because I was just plumb tuckered out after Friday. Why? It wasn't because of work, that I can assure you. I took Friday off for yet another milestone event: Street Rod Painter!!! I had planned the visit to Ken's shop (Ken Pike, owner) some 2 weeks ago and today was the day the FFR body was going in as gelcoat and crossing my fingers that it will come back a jewel. I am keeping the color somewhat a secret for now. If you've been following any of my threads in the last couple of weeks, you can probably guess what it is. (Hint: it's blue... :) )

The morning of Friday, I woke up early around 6:30AM and prepared all of the stuff to take to Ken Pike's shop: windshield, roll bars, tape down the doors and rear trunk, brought a bunch of hardware just in case. My friend arrrived around 7:40AM and we headed to the U-Haul Rental to get the car carrier but a computer glitch nearly killed our plans as they could NOT accept any credit cards; this was affecting all U-Hauls in the immediate area! But after 30-40 minutes they finally got us processes and we brought the trailer back to the house to load up the FFR. I was thinking the computer glitch might be a sign of problems to come.

By about 9:15-9:30AM, we were off. Since the car carrier only allows us to travel a safe 45mph, we kept the speed to only 50mph all the way from Sunnyvale to Yuba City. This was probably the best milage he has ever gotten from his Toyota Sequoia despite the extra 3400 lbs; once we got going, we literally did not stop until Woodland (the first city off the freeway, about 90 miles from Sunnyvale.) All the while mainaining 50 mph.

From Woodland, it was all rural roads but very little stopping until we hit Yuba City. Still, at 50mph, it took us 3.5 hours to get to Ken's. Once there, we immediately unloaded the FFR and rolled it into his facility. The two workers at Ken's that are dedicated to the "custom rod" part of his business went right to work fitting the doors, windshield and roll bars. I discussed a bit about the final details of my order with Ken and will be doing his package #3 plus a few additional options. Among those options: adding gas struts to the hood, Mini-Cooper rear backup lamp, and the pin-stripes next to the main stripes.

Getting home took a little longer as we had to stop a couple of times to get the tarp to stay on but ultimately, we removed it altogether for fear of having it fly off onto someone elses car and causing an accident. That and filling up the gas tank. We got home and unloaded by 7:30PM; was way too tired to organize anything; I just dumped the chassis and everything else into the garage..

This morning, I had just enough energy to put things away and decided to take care a bit of the brake bleeding and front alignment. Brakes are still not bled completely but alignment was much better than before (well, there was no alignment before.) The brake bleeding did reveal a number of leaks that were taken care of by cranking down on a number of the fittings but by the end of the day, none of them leaked. Still have quite a bit of air in the system; may be time to get a pressure bleader at this point. Here are just a few pics from Friday's episode:

First time the car has hit the ground witout dollies:

And onto the trailer it goes:

Three and a half hours later, we arrive at Ken's shop:
(So why doesn't it say "Street Rod Painter" like his web-site???)

A few bodies basking in the sun:

Appears the mini-cooper backup is catching on (by the way, that is Ford Sonic Blue according to Ken):

The estimated time of completion is 6-8 weeks. This should give me enough time to finish the wiring on the car as well as the brakes. One significant detail that I have to resolve now is the 4-into-4 headers. It appears the 351 headers sit too low. Yes, I took a recommendation which didn't pan out as I expected. I will be calling FFR to order the 302 headers. This will delay firing the motor for awhile now.

4/17/2006 - Sunday I spent time bonding the padded vinyl over the dash. My original thought was to anodize the dash but due to some deep scratches and small kinks at the ends of the dash where it bends toward the mounting points, I felt it was best to use the vinyl. However, trying to roll the thick vinyle over the other side, I was unable to consistently get the fabric to hold. I am using a heavy duty 3M adheasive, #90 instead of #77, but even after following their directions, I could not get more than a few inches of the padding to stick. I think the problem is trying to cover the entire perimeter all at once. Perhaps if I did a section at a time, this might of helped. Still, given my situation, I decided to forego bonding the backside of the vinyl behind the dash and trimmed the entire perimter. If this proves to not hold up over time, I will redo the entire dash but using a thin vinyl material found in the fabric stores.

After allowing some time for the glue to dry, I cut out all the holes and began what I hope is the final assembly of the dash. It actually looks a lot better than I expected:

The hole on the far right is reserved for the heater hose shut-off knob.

Througout the week I hope to finish the dash installation, hook up the I-Squared Master Controller and ultimately, the Power Controller. Will test all circuits as best I can perhaps using a 12v lamp while testing each switch. If everything checks out, it will be time to fill the radiator with water to test for leaks and if that checks out, I'll need to make a few runs to the gas station and fill up the 1 gallon fuel bottle and get some gasoline into the tank for an initial fire up!!! Stay tuned.

4/18/2006 - I decided to perform a preliminary test of the I-Squared system tonight. The first step is to mount the Master Controller. This box has some simple diagnositcs on the underside of the box. This meant the box would need to be removable in order to run the diagnostics. I used some heavy-duty velcro to fasten it to the firewall. Once I had this located, I clipped on the dash using some clamps and connected the 12 pin molex connectors together; this ties all of the dash gauges to all of the sensors and other components around the car. The Master Controller harness simply plugs into (4) 10 pin plugs for every switch on the dash as well as the radiator thermostatic switch and the brake pressure switch. It also has the LED lines as well for the signal lamps.

Note the +12V distribution block just below the Master Controller; ground stud is located just to the left of the block. To the right are the hoses to the heater.

Next, I checked all the corner wires where exterior lights would have been, to ensure they were not touching ground. Then looked one more time at every line to ensure no foreign object (i.e. conductor) was accidentally laying across any copper. In particular, my 12v distribution block on the 2x2 behind the dash.

Once I verified no obvious shorts would occur, I turned the battery cutt-off to on, turned the Power Controller's inline circuit breaker on, and finally, my hobby 12-14v variable power supply. This is not a high-amp power supply; it's only used on my RC cars for running chargers and cooling fans.

The blue communication LED's on both boxes tells me they are communicating properly.. Since there's no body in the way, I simply sat in the driver side seat and began flipping switches and watching the light show behind me. :)

Verified the following:

Left Turn LED - OK
Right Turn LED - OK (Note, this is the newer momentary switch design.)
4-Way Flasher - both LED's - OK
Headlamp/Parking Lights - not sure; gauge illumination did not occur. No headlamps hooked up at this time.
Fuel Pump - whoa, that's loud! No gas in the tank so no worries.
Ignition - MSD6AL cannot be confirmed but all the gagues suddenly took a set with voltage gauge showing 12v. Tach centered to zero and all others to the far left. - OK but need to test MSD which will be the day we fire up the motor I guess.
Heater Motor - HI/LOW - OK/OK
Wiper Motor - HI/LOW - OK/OK
Start Motor - well, not enough amperaage to start the car but no solenoid action. :(
Horn - well guess what? The gauges illuminate now!

So after this exercise, I discovered the following:

1) I never did hook up the starter relay. D-OH. It was up front along with the other wires for lamps, horns and fans. Forgot to pull it back to the firewall and route it into the realy. That's now been completed.

2) Horn - I basically got the colors mixed up. Located the "parking light" line going up front and tapped into it. Now I don't have to "honk" to light up my gauges. :)

I'm feeling pretty good right now. With these fixes completed, I feel this wiring experience wasn't as bad as some would have thought. I can only imagine with just those 2 problems on a relayed system, the angst I would have felt, trying to see if the problem was power to the relays, bad /defective relay(s or, bad switch or something else. With the 1+1, I KNEW I wired up the switch right becasue the LED's on the fuse box verified it. That's when I knew it was simply some dumb thing which it was.

Chris at I-Squared, I have to say this is one sweet system. I didn't relish the relay laden setup one bit from the time I started to think about them until the day I ordred the kit. After that, I "dreaded" the wiring but knew I could do it, just wouldn't enjoy it. But now, I feel I could wire up any car with this system. The fact that I zero'd in on the root cause of my problems so quickly is a huge factor. I didn't have to sit there and think: "is it the relay? Or the switch? Or the wiring?". When I flipped a switch or pushed a button, the Power Controller told me right away what circuit was activated so I immediately knew the switch is working fine. Of course there are no relays. With the PC telling me power is being delivered, it then boils down to "where". If I wired it wrong, as in the 2 cases above, it won't take long to find.

4/20/2006 - I received the hood louvers from Maeir Racing this morning. These are 10 slot GT500 style louvers. I will be shipping these out to Ken Pike up in Yuba City tomorrow. I enclosed a picture of a hood with the finished louvers so he can get an idea on how to position them. Hopefully these will look good when he's done.

4/30/2006 - The past 10 days since the last entry has been very slow. I have done the following since 4/20:

- Installed CSR T-filler, clamped all hoses to and from the radiator.
- Installed a dedicated ground strap to the Ford Mini-Starter
- Riveted the foot-box cover. This was a tough call initially but I realized the only reason I would ever need to lift the cover "might" be for the clutch cable but I can get my hand around the clutch quadrant so I made the decision to just rivet it all together.
- Riveted the large round cover plate just above the master cylinder. This hole is supposedly for a large wiring harness grommet. I was able to only rivet it 4 of the 6 rivets. The last two are blocked by the master cylinder. I did use some silicone to seal up the area so it should be too much of an issue.
- With the footbox cover done, I decided to mount the dash semi-permenantly. I have clecko's on the end-ears, and two on the far ends of the dash that meet with the 3/4" bowed dash tube. I've also re-connected the speedometer and all electrical. I will probably drill 2 more holes away from the hypothetical center. The center will be done once the body goes on, so I can center it between the dual stripes.
- I worked a bit on the excessive toe and camber of the front-end. I know it's not exact but it's a lot better than before.

I tried bleeding brakes but I am going to get a pressure bleeder at this point. There's so much air in the MC that it's "fountaining" and if you know anything about these Jeep MC's, the gaskets do not seem to seal well at all. I tried using some silicone between the cap and the gasket but still get some liquid dribbling out. Once the I get all the air out, the fountianing will stop and that should take care of the leaking a little bit.

In talking of the forum, I learned that I don't necessarily need to use coolant/anti-freeze. It's only necessary in areas where water can freeze but in CA where this car is located, it will never freeze so I am going to go with straight distilled water and Red Line "Water Wetter" to help with lubrication and with lowering temps.

May is tomorrow. This will be a fairly significant month. If all goes according to plan, I should have the brakes completely bled, the extra wires to the front electrical, and possibly, my first go-kart! This will be an exciting month indeed!