Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

7/3/2005 - Happy Independence Day! Not a whole lot to report since the last post. I did take care of one little item, which is the vent for the rear differential cover. I retainted the main plastic piece that is inserted into the cover but the tip where the hose was attached had cracked off long before I ever recieved the rear-end. I bought a plastic coupler that was slightly larger and drilled out the plastic insert a bit to allow the coupler to fit; I applied a little bit of black RTV to keep it in place.

The next couple of months may be a similar routing, just trying to finish off the little bit's and pieces that still need to be taken care of just like the vent.. Off the top of my list:

T5 vent tube assembly - missing the whole thing. Not sure but I'm guessing I must of mangled it when I tried to remove it or it too wasn't present.
Ron Francis "Cobra" wiring kit.
Clutch fork extention by Fortes Parts Connection
Clutch cable reatining clip.
Russ Thompson's Gas Pedal and matching pedal covers for the clutch and brake pedal.

That should take me through the summer... hopefully.

7/17/2005- I've just returned from a long deserved Hawaiian vacation which started right after the Independence Day Holiday. I'm now officially a few dollars poorer but well tanned, however, I had ordered a dual-tube fuel tank pickup from Cartech, prior to the July 4th weekend and this past Friday, I received the unit from UPS. I proceeded to remove the old pump and install the new pickup.

The decsision to go with an external fuel pump is what drove the decision to get a pickup but I wanted to get one with a return style tube. On the internet, I spotted one in Jegs for about $139+shipping, but then I found Cartech for only $100+shipping. This unit appears to be a very stout unit and decided to go with it.

(7/23/05): I later learned that the Granateli unit is $92.95+shipping but the AN ends are already welded on so this would have save about $8-10 in fittings that are needed on the Cartech. Live and learn. :(

Removing the old pump didn't take too long. With a rubber mallet and a piece of hard red-oak I had laying around, it only took 3 good whacks to remove the lock-ring. After a bit of twisting and contortional moves, I was finally able to remove the OEM pump and pre-filter:

The Cartech pickup utilizes the pre-filter which wasn't much of a problem, however, the 3 tangs that hold the lock ring needed to be loosened just a small bit because the flange on the Cartech pickup is a bit thicker than the OEM Ford pump flange. I examined the rubber or neoprene O-ring gasket and it seemed to be in good shape so I simply cleaned up the area and reinstalled everything. I did take time to note the position of the original angle that the pump took. Looking into the tank, I now know why; there appears to be a square U-shaped slosh shield that surrounds the pre-filter at the base of the fuel pump. In the side-by-side picture, it points to approx a 5-O'clock position so I made sure I marked the Cartech so it would line up the same way.

7/23/2005- Houston, we have a problem. It wasn't obvious to me but after visiting the Cartech site to get the fitting sizes, I realized the tubes are welded welded to the wrong sides of the bulkhead. The tube with the fitting at the end for the pre-filter (feed tube) should have been on the side of the larger 3/8NPT hole instead of the 1/4NPT hole. It's correct on the Cartech website. Email has been sent to rectify the situation.

7/27/2005- The pickup has been shipped back and Cartech will replace it with the correct one. While waiting on this, I decided to get the first part of the fuel system. This is simply all of the necessary NPT type fittings for the Mallory hardware I ordered yesterday. I have to hand it to Summit Racing, they are QUICK! I recieved my order today (less than 24 hours from order to my doorstep!) I haven't mounted any of the fittings yet but here's a picture of the primary pieces.

7/30/2005- With some time to kill, I worked on the clutch fork cover. This would seem to be a simple task but a couple of things needed to be done. The first issue is, the cover was designed for the original aluminum T5 bellhousing and there is a screw hole that lines up with the cover. The Lakewood has no screw hole to secure the cover. The next issue turned out to be the length of the cover. This is because the Lakewood uses more nuts/bolts to secure the housing to the block plate. The nuts protrude into the cover area whereas this problem does not exist on the original. I first had to cut the cover to length. This took about 2 cuts which resulted in about 1" of the cover being removed. Once I was happy with the fit, the next thing was drilling a screw hole. Due to the thickness of the housing, I decided to use a bolt instead of a self-tapping screw. I sized up a 5/16-18 stainless steel bolt I had laying around and drilled/tapped a hole to accept the bolt. Finally, I did a little bit of finishing work and took a light hammer to the edge of the cover and conformed it to the bellhousings "round" shape.