Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

OCTOBER 2006

10/1/2006 - I'll be working on the rear splash gurards this week and probably dial out the excessive rear camber. I am still smiling over yesterday's drive. I got a couple of photo's from my wife's camera to start off what is essentially the end of year 3 of this project. (If you go back to 2003, this is when the project plan started to take shape.)

10/2/2006 - The driver side rear splash guard has been installed (passenger side done on Sunday.) I also installed a Ray-Dot mirror onto the side of the windshield frame. After installation, I now understand why people are not impressed with this type of mirror. The size is just too small to be of any usefulness unless at a standstill. For now, I'll live with it.

I went to the DMV this afternoon just before closing and received an new temporary operating permit. I have only this month to get the CHP to assign me a proper VIN tag, and to have the BAR issue me an exemption sticker. I'll have my hands full and hope I can do it all in a month. With the backup light installed and functional, 2 rear view mirrors, headlamps and brake lights, plus all my receipts, I should be almost ready. The last thing I wanted to install just for the VIN, are the quick jacks. I will be getting overriders later on (holding out for polished SS versions) but for now, I'm just going to use POR-15 Black on the overriders an install them on Wednesday evening.

10/4/2006 - I painted the quick jacks gloss black yesterday night and this evening I mounted them. The only one that appears to be off a bit is the front-driver side; both SS pipes touch both holes at 12-O'clock position. Will need to elongate the holes probably a good 1/4" to clear. The car at this point is much closer to completion.

Also today, I tried to get an early appiontment with the CHP for inspection and VIN number but they are about 3-4 weeks out; next appointment is Nov. 2nd. :(

10/11/2006 - The past week has been about tweaking the rear suspension. I'm within 1/2 turn on the driver side of making it identical to the passenger rear; I "think" (eye-balling) I'm at -1 deg. of negative camber on the passenger side. My last adjustment last night won't be known until I can move the car a bit so it can settle (kinda loud otherwise at 10:00PM). I did install brake duct grills that I had obtained from another builder of an Everett-Morrison kit. They are simply silicone'd in; required just a minor trim. It really does change the look of the front quite a bit.

10/13/2006 - Today was somewhat of another milestone for SNKVNNM. I had planned on driving the car a longer distance in preparation for my drive to Redwood City on Tuesday for the DMV inspection /VIN applicatoin. So I arranged to have lunch with my newphew who works about a mile from me. So today was the day I'd take the car for an extended drive. As it turned out, I put on 36 miles all said and done.

The day started off in the low 60's so I dressed accordingly. I went over how I was going to "leave the car" when I do park it at work. I've never had to really think about such things until now, seeing it's my first open top car. I have several "kill" devices in the car so chances were good nobody could drive off with it. As I pull out of the garage, I get a tense and exciting feeling this is going to be a different commute to work than anything I've ever done in all my years of commuting to any job. The first few miles are nothing really new since it's still the neigborhood. My job is 10 miles point-to-point so I'm just getting the car warmed up.

As I make it to the intersection of my main expressway, Lawrence Expressway, my wife pulls along side me with my teenaged daughter. My wife has this smile that says "Herman's going to do something stupid isn't he?" but I didn't do anything unsual. Just eased onto the expressway. Thankfully, it's Friday so no real fight to merge into traffic and getting out of the commuter lane. Or is it because everyone suddenly slowed down to take a look at something they've never seen at commute hour. Regardless, I'm driving in traffic and just really glued to the car in front, the gauges and the rear view mirror.

On a few occasions, I see people in the rearview mirror kinda trying to get a better angle at seeing more of the car. Kinda funny; some point, others are moving side-to-side.

Lawrence Expressway leads me to my first "highway" run on Hwy 237 (Calaveres). Here, I got on the gas to merge; getting to speed is not a problem with this car. However, I wasn't sure until I completed the 5 mile drive on 237 to conclude that anything up to 60mph with my 3.55 gearing, doesn't play well with 5th gear. It's like it's lugging the car, whereas 4th gear seems just slightly too high but otherwise, very happy in 4th! The engine/wind noise was not bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't bad given the kind of car it is. :)

At around 11:00AM, I took the car out to some co-workers in another building and drove 3 of them around; a number of times I just floored it and boy this thing takes off... and it's not even tuned yet! I did bump into the rev-limiter and it quickly cut down the ignition so I know that works (set to 6,000RPM). A couple of disturbing issues: still a slight leak at the MC and still some rubbing of the rear tires. Will address the leak on Saturday. The rubbing "may" go away when the alignment is done. I did note I have quite a bit of rear toe-in so with a specification of 1/16" toe-in, I may not rub anymore.

After the co-worker rides, I drove over to my newphew; he showed the car off to a few of his co-workers; one particular person couldn't keep his fingers off the body. Guess he's never been to a car show before... not that it bothered me much but wondered what would happen if he did that at a REAL car show!

We took off for In-N-Out in Milpitas, (McCarthy Ranch strip mall) and during the trip, I noted the water temp was rising past 190 and 200 where the fans should have kicked in. I hit the override switch but still no go. I got to 230 before we got to In-N-Out. I quickly hit the battery kill switch and then turned it back on. The fans finally turned on. I'll be keeping an eye out on this since this is the 2nd time it's happened. I think my new procedure for starting the car will now include a test of the radiator fans.

After lunch, we drove back and I was immediately tailed by a Milpitas Police cruiser. I wasn't sure what his intentions were but I think he was just checking the car out. He turned off and back into the mall! I was kinda nervous of the radiator so I kept my eye's glued to the temp gauge. It was wokring fine but my nephew was taking in all of the gawkers in their cars looking at the FFR.

After dropping him off, I tooks some outside pictures for the first time:

I went back to work at a remote building; spent about an hour inside. When I got back out, there were a group of guy's gawking at the car. I think 1/2 the people at work (Cisco Systems) knew what this was and 1/2 do not. A vast majority of the workforce is either Middle Eastern or Taiwanese so I'm guessing many are not familiar with the AC Cobra much less my replica, however, there was universal appeal and praise for the FFR. It amazes them when I tell them I built it myself.

I will say that by the end of the day, I was exhausted. Perhaps most of it was nerves, driving a car so far away from home, and hand built without any proper QA checks. Some of it was just not having a 5 speed V8 for over 20 years (actually, my 65' Mustang was a 4spd toploader.). The King Cobra clutch isn't bad for short drives but I can now say, it's not meant for a daily driven car. At least not for me. Maybe I"m just getting soft in my old age. Another thing I noticed is how nauseated I felt; breathing in rich fuel exahust in traffic took it's toll. As of this writing, I'm now feeling better but I sure hope a good tune up will take away some of that.

Making it back to my garage, I felt relieved and very satisfied. I know the car will make it to Redwood City on Tuesday. If all goes well, I'll be 2 steps from being fully registered.

10/17/2006 - Today was VIN assignment day. One of 5 steps towards registration. Actually, it's step 2. Step 1 occurred on Jan. 3rd for the SPCN "lottery" ticket to have "my" specialty constucted vehicle registered and titled as a 65' Ford Roadster. Step 3 will be BAR certification, followed by Headlamp and Brake inspection (Step 4), and finally back to the DMV for my plates (Step 5).

My appointment was in Redwood City at 10:00AM. I arrived there at 9:50AM. Officer Phurchpean greeted me and ask for receipts for all the major components. After 10 minutes, he returned to with a VIN plate, drill and rivets. We went to the car and he looked at possible locations for the VIN tag before settling on the aluminum cover of the driver side footbox. After that, he complimented me on the car and said have a good day. Not once did he look at any numbers on any component of the car. Just receipts. Turn around time from parking to leaving was 20 minutes.

I went home for lunch and got ready for my 1:00PM alignment at Custom Alignment in Mountain View. I arrived about 10 minutes early (funny thing about this car, I seem to be arriving early everywhere I go!) I went over a few things with the person doing my alignment and 4 hours later, he was finally done! I can't say I blame them when you look at how the FFR IRS is designed. Still, he got everthing close to spec but decided the rear should be zero camber for my initial street use. He said it will take a few hundred miles for everything to setlle down so the alignment will need to be checked again. When that time arrives, he'll set it to -1 deg. if I want. Since I won't be racing anytime in the near future, I felt this was ok.

One thing he did find was my steering rack was rather loose. He was unable to get the alignment of the steering wheel to stick until he realized I didn't tigthen down the rack enough. After he torqued it down, he test drove it again and things were fine.

I've already made a call to the BAR before the alignment and I will be going to a refere station next Wednesday (10/25).

10/23/2006 - I've had taken more photos earlier but didn't get around to them until today. Here are a few more:

My older sister May:

My other sister Jane

My newphews fiance Laura

10/25/2006 - Another hurdle has been cleared on my way to the DMV. As planned, I drove over to the Fremont Referee Station at the Wyco Automotive School (formerly Sequoia Institiute). The morning was a little cooler than expected on the 30 mile ride up. I dressed with my ski jacket on as usual with the heater on. All the way up people heads cranked to get a look at this "toy" during a 9:00AM commute. I arrived about 10 minutes early and was greeted by the referee and two students, both that seemed to have Eastern block names and talked a European language to each other but knew how to speak english as they were all smiles and asking questions (yes, I built the car myself; yes, most of the motor myself.)

The car was never put on the rollers. I drove right up to the sniffer and away he went. While I "failed" the sniffer, the car was smogged checked according to body type. I brought along the book "Cobra - The Shelby American Original Archives 1962-1965" just in case. The referee was actually very interested in the book and I even let him take photo copies of a few pages.

All visual "passed"; he never did check the fuel cap. He finalizes the paperwork and prints out the smog certificate, gives me the signed paper work to hand back to the DMV, I shake everyone's hands and off I went.Was out of there in 50 minutes. I was with the car the entire time. When I was leaving, one of the classes was on break and everyone darn near had whiplash when I came whizzing by! I waved at them all hearing some "wow" and "cool". The drive home was a bit faster as I needed to get to work but didn't want to bring the car for fear of some more scratches to the paint. One thing I did note was the car got very light as it hit 90mph. It was a bit windy too so I kept it at 80 or below almost the entire time.

With the smog out of the way, the only thing left is the Brake and Lamp Certification. Hoping to get this done before 10/31 when my temporary operating permit expires.

10/30/2006 - I scheduled time to perform the Brake and Lamp inspection/certification today but by the end of the session, I only got the Brake Certificate. The Lamp inspection involves anything that illluminates on the car. There were 3 area's which denied me the certificate; they are:

1) High Beam must be at least a On-Off switch, not just a momentary. Appears the momentary is an option. Mine is momentary
2) High Beam Indicator must be present. D-OH! My bad.
3) There must be 2 backu lamps, one on either side of the rear of the car.

For the first 2, I remedied the switch and indicator overnight. Not a big deal at all. But I took exception to the backup lamps. On one side, the vehicle code requires "one or more" backup lamps. I already had added a center Mini-Cooper style backup lamp. Also, from another certification center I called afterwards, the need for 2 backup lamps only holds true if the car originally came with 2 but since this is a replica of a 1965 vehicle, those cars never came with backup lamps at all. The problem I see, is the "year of car" is still a 2006 due to it's date of assembly or manufacture, which is 2006. Well duh, any car these days made in 2006 would have 2 backup lamps.

I have made arrangements to go to the second shop that does B&L's for Superformance replicas, in the hopes they better understand how to do the lamp inspection part. If all goes well, I will be legal next month. The bad news here is, my "temporary operating permit" will expire after tomorrow and that's Halloween. So I must now go to the DMV in November to get a 11/06 TOP before I can drive to the Lamp Inspection center. But I'm more hopeful this time.

Oh, there is "plan c" and that's simply to buy two lamps, clamp them to the frame just below each fender out back, and tap into the Mini's +12v and be done with this fiasco. But I'm hoping it doesn't go there.