Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

August 2006

8/2/2006 - Steady progress has been made to complete the cockpit. I still have a bit of insulation left after attempts to conserve as much as possible and in some places, putting in the scrap pieces to fit in areas of odd shapes and sizes. The result of which most will never see since the carpet will cover it all up. I could probably do most of the trunk with what's left of the roll but I'm planning on no carpet at this time.

So far, the carpet tape is holding up but there are some "loose" spots and I feel down the road, I will readdress the carpet issue. For now the primary focus is to ensure the rear wall was done for the body mounting and that area was attached with the 3M #90 adheasive so it's not going to come off.

I spent today drilling the 1/8" holes for the sheet metal screws that are used for both the shifter trim ring and the parking brake boot. Both came out quite good. I've seen the billet aluminum trim though and maybe someday I'll upgrade to that but for now, the chrome plated steel isn't that bad at all.

8/3/2006 - While cleaning up my desk in the house, I came across the set of pedal covers that Rod Geraghty (aka dv/dt) had customized by etching in the orginal Factory Five "5" logo (which incidentally, may be repalced by Kouros's version.) Since I already have Russ Thompsons throttle lever assembly, swapping over the pedal cover for that one was painless, however, I did drill holes into both the clutch and brake pedals. I will say there isn't much room for error on the metal that's on the Mustang pedals. And since the pedals are bent (looks like a trapazoid when viewed sideways), the brake pedal cover had a fairly large gap where I wanted to mount it (even with the gas pedal) and was interfering a bit with the lever arm of the brake itself, so I took some spare aluminum bar stock that is about 3/4" wide and 1/8" thick, and cut 2 pieces approx. 2" long and driledl a set of holes that matched the pedal covers. This filled in the gap very nicely and the screws were "just" long enough to engage the nylon in the nylock nuts. The clutch pedal had a bit more meat to it and when positioned, actually didn't require any spacers so it went in very quickly. The trio of covers really "completed" the driver side footbox. I do have a 4th cover (reserved for a dead pedal) but haven't decided on that one yet.

8/7/2006 - With not much left to do, I'm starting to tackle all those little things that should be done while the body is still off. Today, it was the roll bars. I started last weekend but realized my "pilot" tip 5/16" drill is just way too old (bought it way back around 10 years ago) and decide to purchase a cobalt bit. Man, that just went through all of the steel like it was nobody's business! I drilled out all of the base holes (6) and left the upper legs for last. I'm still undecided on using a hidden bolt from one of the forum vendors, or simply drill a hole and bolt it in. I may decide in another week or two.

I also shimmed up the clutch pedal cover with a 1/8" spacer. It may not seem like much but it actually helps bring the pedal forward just that much more. My body is disproportionate - my legs are about as long as my body; it makes for interesting driving. When I had my 65' Mustang, I had a devil of a time shifting as the steering was nearly at my chest in order for me to depress the clutch pedal sufficiently. I was fearing this might be the same issue but fortunatley, on the FFR, I have the chance to shorten the steering column and there's actually some wiggle room to bring the pedal box forward a tad. While I didn't move the foot box forward, the ablility to shim up the pedal covers allowed me to drive in a much more comfortable position than in my Mustang. About the only egronomic gripe I have now is the shifter is still not quite as far forward as I like. Perhaps in the future, should I get a new Tremec 600, I'll go mid-shifter but for now, I can "manage" the T5.

For the rest of this week, I will attempt to tackle the rear lamps; I have not given these any thought because I bundled the wires up in the back and stuffed them under the trunk floor. So now is the time to finalize the wiring (at least on the chassis side.)

8/8/2006 - As mentioned yesterday, I tackled the rear brake/signal lamps and completed the harnesses after work. It actually was quite quick considering I soldered all 16 pins of the 4-Pin Weather Pack modules. The real issue was, during the planning stages, I drew up the schematic and figured I'll just use (2) 4-pin Weather Packs for the rear lights. Then after getting them, and then putting the body on back in April, I realized "how the heck would I be able to pull out one of the lamp assemblies???" D-OH! I was going to go and buy (4) 3-pin Weather Pack modules instead but there were none to be found a Pep-Boys (just housings only). So what I decided on was using crimp style spade connectors and making an intermediate harness that would allow me to remove any given assembly if required. So instead of spending $16+ on housings, I bought $6 worth of spade connectors. It did require a bit more work but after the entire assembly was completed, I tested them on the car and as expected, the things actually worked!!!

As you can see, I also marked each of the spade connectors so I know what goes where ( B=brake, P=park, S=signal and the remaining wires are ground.). The only wiring left to tackle will be the rear license plate lamp and backup lamp, however, SRP has my Mini-Cooper backup lamp so that's going to have to wait but neither will be a show-stopper for completing the car.

8/11/2006 - The last couple of days have been spent on a bit more wiring out back. The 2-pin weather pack for the Mini Cooper backup lamp is done on the chassis side (SRP has the actual unit at his shop.) I also received Mike Everson's good looking trim rings for both roll bars and both sets of seat-belt slots. I installed the seat-belt trims and they do add a nice touch to the interior.

Afterwards, I tackled the mess I left for the I-Squared wiring harness from the Power Controller in the trunk, to the front of the car and behind the dash. This includes the computer communication cable, power lines to all the illumination at the front, as well as all dash related power. Just to refresh you, the original intent was to avoid running the lines through the transmission tunnel to avoid a potential problem should the driveshaft let loose. I elected to run it inside the cockpit as far away from the tranny tunnel but it took quite a while to figure out how to clean up the harness.

The solution was found at the local Orchard Supply Hardware store. Some cable conduit for running long the baseboards of the home appears to be the perfect solution. It has a small, flat dimension of 1"x1/2"x 6' ft.I cut 2 lenghts of 25"; one to run the wires going to the front of the car ( both radiators fans, both headlamps, both high-beams, both signals, and both parking lamps.) The other conduit is for the I-Squared computer cable and the 3 power wires behind the dash ( heater hi, heater low, and ignition.) I cleaned up the insulation and was surprised at how sticky the adheasive was - which was a good thing! The result was a relatively flat channel which I'll be able to carpet over fairly easily.

With the excess corrugated sheathing, I tidied up the computer cable towards the rear so it won't stand out when viewed from above. (Can see the white computer cable in the photo as it exit's the conduit.) With the conduit piece finally figured out, I riveted in a few more cable clamps along the verticle 2x2" as the harness makes it way up and behind the dash.

My next little piece of work will be the door hinges. I'll need to remove some surface rust but should be able to get a few good coats of gloss black to finish up these pieces.

8/12/2006 - Just like the last 2 days, more work to be done. It's simply amazing what get's done when you're waiting for the body to be painted! After my morning bike ride with the family, I started on something I sort of forgot on the dashboard: a 12V Outlet. This wasn't too difficult but I looked at what location I wanted it and it would look better next to the horn button but the heater shut-off knob is there. So I bought a 7/8" hole saw and re-cut the hole where the shut-off knob was located. Once everyting was installed, the 12V Outlet looked perfect next to the horn button and the shut-off was simply moved up next to the wiper switch.

Next were the hinges. This took awhile as I need to do remove some light surface rust. Some "Marine Clean" from my POR15 kit was used and washed off all the rust and stuff. I gave all 4 pieces about 3 coats of gloss black from a Rustoleum rattle can. Looks pretty good as it was baking in the sun. :)

I also riveted down the power cable from the battery kill switch to the circuit breaker just before the I-Squared power controller. It was yet another small thing that might have been forgotten had I rushed into this build.

Afterwards, I took some pictures of the weather packs for the rear lamp assemblies that I didn't take a few days ago when I had finished them. I updated the 8/8/06 entry with two additional pictures.

8/15/2006 - You know what? Grass grows amazingly slow! This waiting for the body is kinda killing me right now! Not much to report today except I decided to go ahead and drill out the top of the 3rd legs on the rollbars. I'm going to give the chrome plater a call and find out how long he will need the bars; and if it's not too expensive, maybe chrome the quick jacks.

On another front, my car has been sitting at about 5" at the rear and a little over that up front. I want to lower the front to 4.5" while leaving the rear statically at 5". The problem is, my standard floor jack, even when I remove the round cup, "just" makes it under the frame rail. If I adjusted the coilovers, it'd never come out! I reviewed both Sear and Harbor Freight for pricing on ther 4000lb. jacks and they're both sale priced at $169.99 (both $199.99 before sale.) I'm rather partial to the Craftsman brand and my local Sears is pretty close by, so I bought the Craftsman low profile aluminum jack.

With the floor jack logistics figured out, I spent about 30-45 minutes adjusting the front coilovers. Using the depth gauge of my caliper, I used the top C-clip ring at the top of the strut as my reference point, and measure it to the upper spring perch. After a few test adjustments, I ended up at 1.1" from the ring to the perch and now the front main rails sit at 4.5" from the ground. The rears were left alongl. The reason for this is because the rear spirngs are softer and when I sit in the car, the rear settles more noticably than the front; and the gas tank is not even 1/2 full so I am accounting for additional weight out back. Hopefully, I "guestimated" correctly. I'll remeasure again when I get a full tank and both by kids get into the car.

8/23/2006 - This past week has been ho-hum, however, I did get a chance to go-kart the car again for a prospective builder. I suspect he had a huge grin on his face when I almost floored the car in 2nd gear. Hit just over 50mph on a short 1/2 block section. We talked for 2 hours over everything. I think I've convinced him to at least think about a carburated setup but I tried to also be very balanced on the pros and cons of a carb v.s. EFI.

I still have a few things I could get done in the next 2 weeks while I wait for my body to be painted and picked up. I've purchased 6' of 2" heater duct for the heater so I'll have something to do now. And one other little item that I never addressed: under dash cross memeber to stiffen the lower part of the dash. Judging from just the sheet of aluminum I have in there now, I won't need much to stiffen the whole dash. So there are things to still do here.

But today, I had a chance to clean up the garage because, well, I'm basically done. With one wall cleaned up, I tried my hand at backing up the car to see how well I can pull this manuever off and allow my wife to park her car in. It's very odd to see my garage as it looked before Novemeber of 2005, except now there's a new vehicle inside!

8/24/2006 - One of the things that should be done is to stiffen the lower part of the dash. This isn't addressed very well at FFR. Mike Everson sells a piece of thick aluminum that runs across almost the entire length of the bottom of the dash and is reported to make the dash rock solid. But from comments by others, if you can't afford the good stuff, you "can" get by with just some sheet aluminum. In fact you don't need much. This was something I wish I had concentrated on very early in the build. Regardless, I did a fairly decent job of stiffening the bottom with two sheets of aluminum from the scraps left over from the FFR filler plates. The block plates for both the radiator pass-through hole on the passenger side F-panel, and the transmission tunnel block plate provided ample sheet aluminm to stiffen the dash very well. I used 6 3/16" rivets to seat the sheets to the 2x2 behind the dash. I used a 5/16" slip-nut (slides over the edge of the sheet and locates a nut about 1/2" from the edge.) I used two bolts to secure the dash to the sheets. And I'll be damn, it's not half bad. It's not as solid as Mikes I imagine, but it's free and seems to work. It obviously does not cover the entire bottom. I may address that some other time.

8/29/2006 - I purchase about 6' ft. of air-duct hose from Napa. This isn't your run of the mill duct you see at the hardware store but the steel coils inside the duct are approx. 3/16" thick! The vinyl is pretty tought too, unlike the thin stuff used for your dryer at home. 6' ft. appears to be all I really needed for both sides. I used some hose clamps to clamp the hoses to the Souther Rods' mini-heater. I have to say, the driver side, the longer run, is pretty weak at full speed due to the long fun. The passenger side is adaquate since the run is no more than 18" long. Hopefully they'll supply just enough heat to take the edge off those cold early mornings for my cruise to Dublin for breakfast!

I also managed to get some 1" PVC and make some steering rack "limiters" to prevent the wheel from rubbing into the aluminum F-panels. I tried 5/8" first as suggest by others on the forum but the tires still touched, so I cut it to 1" and now the wheels miss the F-panels by about 1/2" on the passenger side and 3/4" on the driver side. I used some 10" zipties to re-secure the boots to the rack.

I called Ken at SRP today and according to Ken, he's painting the white stripes today! Yipee!!! Primary paint color should go on tomorrow. Due to the Labor Day Weekend, I'm not going to be able to make this coming Saturday for the installation but most likely next week ( 9/9/06.) This is now beginning to get a little more exciting!

8/31/2006 - HOT OUT OF STREET ROD PAINTER.... My FFR's body has been shot... shot with paint that is. I have a feeling the pictures won't do Ken's work any justice but here goes nothing:

Body in primer coat:

Louvers blended in.

Louvers/hood shot with primer (filler?)

Painted hood; note extended panel under hood scoop and just how close the pin-stripe lines are to the louvers!!!

The painted body! :

My sincerest thanks to Ken on what appears to be an outstanding job. Hmmm... where are the other 3 doors ??? :) The date is set for Sept. 9th for the body fitting.