Go-Cart Milestone!

We've been waiting for a shorter tie-rod end so we could get the front wheels pointed in the same direction. It arrived today while we were enjoying 70 degree weather in the garage. The car wasn't too torn apart, so we put the new tie rod end on, tightened up the steering and suspension a bit and went for a short drive!

The car has no seats and the engine timing needs a tweak to improve the idle quality, but it was sure fun to get this thing moving for a minute! I made a couple more trips with a passenger before retreating inside due to approaching storms.

I determined that we will need an after-market gas pedal after all. I wanted to use the donor pedal to avoid the extra cost, but the pedal is just too touchy. We also realized that the brake lines on the front wheels are STILL too short. I now understand why people just buy the flexible braided steel lines, and that's what we'll be doing as well.

You may have noticed the pace of the build slowed a little during the last month. My assistant builder and I were called to duty as Santa's helpers on a little project. It's a lighted display case for 1:24 scale models. Our oldest son really likes mine, so we made him one for Christmas.

Now we're back to work on the Coupe. We wired up the radiator fan and tested it, and we removed much of the unneeded wiring under the hood and covered up the rest. We re-built the front wiring harness to add plugs like those used on trailers that can be disonnected. One plug on each side of the car will serve the headlights, fog lights and the blinkers.

We installed the horn (boy is that sucker loud!). We're also replacing four relays under the dash. I originally purchased relays that don't fit in relay mounts. The relay mounts make it easier to attach wires to the relays, and I thought that the slide on terminals I was using would be good enough. I've managed to pull a couple of the terminals off with very little effort, so we're making the change now before the dash goes in.

In the coming weeks we will be wiring in the wipers and the air conditioning, as well as the remote door openers. Happy New Year!

Tires ... and a short trip!

It took a couple of tries, but we finally have a set of blemish-free, properly sized wheels to go with the tires we received 6 months ago. We had them mounted at the local Firestone dealer, and they did a great job. It warmed up today, so we decided to put them on the car and roll it out in the sun for a few pictures.

We then gave the brakes a little test, pushing the car down the driveway and hitting the brakes. I think we still have a little air in the system.

However, with gas in the tank and daylight to spare, we pushed the car back up the driveway and started the engine. I put it in gear after a moment and let the clutch out nice and slow. The car moved off down the driveway for our first short drive! After bringing it to a stop, I couldn't get the gearshift (just an inch or two long without the shift lever attached) to drop into reverse, so we shut it down and pushed it back into the garage. We got a thumbs-up from one of the neighbors (wow this thing sounds good!).

We'll be back to work in earnest this week after making a checklist of things to tackle.

A Quiet Week

Not much progress. Some scheduled travel and some ugly weather conspired to keep us from making much headway this week. One of the wheels we received was the wrong size, and the replacement showed up this week with some significant defects on the front of the wheel. Third time's a charm, I guess!

On the plus side, only the junkyard tires are leaking anything. Brake lines, fuel lines, and coolant lines all seem to be holding up. We do have a small leak in the coolant overflow container that we've known about for a while. We might try fixing that with JB Weld.

A few sneak peeks

Now that the motor has been started a couple of times, it is time to get back to buttoning up the wiring. Since that isn't very interesting, I'm offering a few sneak peeks this week.

First up is the switch panel that will sit just above the transmission panel and below the dash. I ordered some labels that will surround the nut that holes each switch in place, and we plan to paint the switch panel and dashboard with black truck bed liner. Trust me, it'll look better than it sounds!

We received our wheels this week. One of them needs to go back as it is the wrong size, but a replacement is already on the way. Once it gets here, I'll have these mounted to the tires and post a picture with them on the car.

Finally, here is a look at the car today. Once we get the wiring cleaned up and covered up, we'll get back to bolting things onto the chassis in preparation for fitting the body.

Better Late Than Never

The BIG news is that we've started the Coupe for the first time!!!!! You can see it here. Yes, it sounds that good in person!

We made good progress on lots of small things since the last update. The electricals are coming along nicely. You might just be able to glimpse the switch panel sitting on the transmission tunnel. We drilled all of the holes to mount the switches and even bought some plastic tags to label those switches.

We still need to wire up the air conditioner and windshield wiper systems. We also need to update the wires at the front of the car for headlights, turn signals, etc. Then it will be a race to see what we can put on the car before the body has to go on for fitting, trimming, etc.

We received most of our wheels this week as well. I'll post a picture when I get some daylight.

Testing the Electricals

We plugged in a small 12V battery and started testing some of the circuits this weekend. As of now, the blinkers, hazards, brake lights, horn and ignition are all working. We can't actually start the car until some needed fuel line connectors arrive, but we were able to turn the motor over with the starter. Success!

We have a few more circuits to test, but since we haven't built the front lighting harness yet those will have to wait.

We need to fit some aluminum pieces around the radiator and get those painted. They're supposed to be in place before the radiator is filled. A brief test fit last night shows us this will take a little time to finish.

My assistant builder took the surface rust off of our steel side exhaust, and we gave them a couple coats of high-heat paint. They're looking great!

We should be starting the engine this coming week. We have a number of small tasks to tackle as well. The next major step is to put the body back on and start fitting the doors, the hood and the rear hatch. I'd like to get as much done as I can before then.

Grounding Ourselves

Lots of progress this week. We mocked up the gauges in the dash so we could build wiring assemblies. You'll have to take our word for that, as we pulled it back apart without taking any pictures.

We installed the battery in its tray and ran the main battery cables. We're not ready to connect the battery just yet, so the leads are still loose.

Our decision to use electrical relays complicated our wiring job a little, but will pay dividends. Relays allow us to use the cool switches we want to use without worrying about burning them out by running high-amperage current through them. A relay allows us to use a low-amp signal current to close a switch on a much more powerful circuit. We used them to power the blinkers, brake lights, ignition, and headlights. We will also have them for the engine fan, wipers, and remote door openers.

We also want to be able to remove the dash later if needed to troubleshoot any problems, and that means installing some extra connectors. You can see nine black cube-shaped relays and four white conectors in this picture.

This picture shows a small tray we made to mount four of the relays. We didn't want to drill any extra holes in the firewall, so we came up with the tray idea.

My assistant builder spent much of our time today installing grounds for our electrical system. This involves drilling a hole in the steel frame, sanding off the powdercoating to get a good ground, then installing the ground wire and hitting it with some paint to protect the steel from rusting.

If the weather holds, we're hoping to start the engine during the long Thanksgiving Day weekend. Our to-do list for starting the car didn't get much shorter this week, but the tasks on it are much smaller than they used to be.

So many wires...

Our progress on the electricals is far from finished, but at least you can now see our progress in pictures. You can tell by the number of fuses that we've removed from the fuse panel that we've been whittling down the wiring.

Our big accomplishment this weekend was to get the rear wiring harness finished! You can see it in the picture below as a dark line emerging to the left of the silver differential cover and working its way around to the fuel tank.


We had to redo the circuits for the brake lights, running lights and blinkers since we have fewer lamps than the original car had. We're planning to buy a license plate frame that contains white LEDs acting as a reverse light.

We turned our attention to the dash area and whittled away there as well. We pulled wires for the stereo and airbag system, as well as for the old instrument cluster.

before:

after:

Most of the wires are accumulating in a pile. We're not throwing anything away until we've proven the wires in the car actually work!

We're ready to start building the ignition circuits. Stay tuned!

Still More Electrical...

Lots of progress this week on the electricals, though you wouldn't be able to tell from a picture of the Coupe. Instead, I'll post a few pictures of the schematics I'm working on to document the maze of wires that are going into the car.

I dreaded the electrical work, but I'm starting to like it!

Much of the wiring inside the car is changing from the donor wiring because:

-we don't use a single instrument cluster with a series of "idiot lights", instead each gauge or light must be wired

-we aren't using most of the creature comforts wired into a modern car, so many of the original wires are going

-we have all new systems for air conditioning and windshield wipers, plus a remote-controlled door release (you may have noticed the car doesn't have door handles! :-) )

Creating the schematics gives me a way to check my logic and improve my layout without throwing away wire and expensive connectors. It also gives me something to use later if I have to troubleshoot a problem.

My immediate goal is to document the circuits needed for the ignition, then finish the fuel lines, install the battery, perform a complete test of the electricals, and start it up!

Plumbing!

The kit has been here for almost 90 days now. We're pleasantly surprised by our progress, even though the last few weeks have been slowed while working on the wiring.

The radiator arrived this week, and we didn't waste any time getting it out of the box.

I managed to wire up the starter relay and the starter itself. I also built circuits for the blinkers and hazard lights, and for the headlights, hi-beams and fog lights.

I still need to wire up the ignition and double-check all of the circuits before I'll be ready to put any power to it. Rather than risk burning out any of the components, we purchased a 12V power supply with a built-in circuit breaker. That should allow us to test all of the circuits before installing the battery.

Progress on Many Fronts This Week

We seem to be moving from one major system of the vehicle to another, always returning to work a little more on the wiring. Could it be that I'm intimidated by so many wires? Perhaps...

We received our driveshaft and installed it. The donor driveshaft is almost four feet long. An indication of just how small the Coupe will be is that the driveshaft on it is just over a foot long! After seeing how big the u-joints are, we may have to change or eliminate our plans for a second cupholder for the car. The cupholders are for things like cell phones and sunglasses since there is no storage within reach of the driver.

A neighbor's friend volunteered to weld up a custom accelerator cable bracket. The original bracket stood too tall with the replacement of our stock intake manifold. I think it looks great! We finished installing the cable right after this picture was taken.

We installed the ignition coil and the starter relay on the driver's side of the engine compartment.

We did make some progress on the wiring. We've pulled together many of the wires needed for the switches and gauges on the dash, and we have a rough plan to organize them. Of course, the plan might not be evident just yet...

We ordered and received a new ignition lock (the donor was a dud), a windshield wiper system, and a set of floormats. The radiator whould be here this week, and we continue to wait for the wheels.

As for the surprise? Well, we were expecting a visit from the owner of a Cobra Roadster this weekend to pick up some parts we didn't need. He decided to ship the parts rather than make the 800+ mile round trip to pick them up. I can hardly wait to drive my first 800 miles in this thing...

Steering and starting electricals

This week we installed the steering rack and the steering column.

We also started running wires... lots and lots of wires. Since we bought the donor parts on a pallet, we did not get a chance to see and label each electrical connector as it was removed from the car. As a result, it has taken some detective work and several wiring diagrams to figure out what goes where.

Making matters a little more challenging, the donor was a convertible with all of the bells and whistles. The Coupe won't need many of the items wired into the donor, and I will be removing many of those wires in the upcoming weeks. The process is called a "wire diet" and should result in having far fewer wires to cram under the dashboard. Space under the dash is at a premium since we purchased the air conditioner kit.

This is the dashboard aluminum. It came with the holes for the gauges already drilled. There is a smaller switch panel that sits below the center guages and above the transmission tunnel. We will need to mark and drill it for the various toggle switches that go there.

Next week we will have a special surprise in our update! Stay tuned!

EXTRA EXTRA!!

I couldn't wait to post this update. Dropping the engine in the car is a big milestone. It is nowhere near ready to start up, but it feels good to see such a big part of the car in place.

My 20-year old 3rd assistant builder dropped by today, and we took advantage of some beautiful weather and 2 hours of annual leave to drop in the motor.

As for the wheels, those are not the wheels and tires I bought to use on the car. I picked these up at a salvage yard to use so we could put the motor in. We've been pushing it from one end of the garage to the other just because we can! :-)

ENGINE + TRANSMISSION = ONE LONG WEEKEND!

This weekend we pulled together all of the new parts we purchased to refurbish the clutch. Everything between the engine and the transmission is new: starter, block off plate, pilot bearing, flywheel, clutch plate, pressure plate, release bearing, and clutch fork.

We remounted the old exhaust headers so we could attach the engine hangers. We removed the engine from the engine stand and started adding cutch parts. Except for a hammer-smashed thumb (mine), this went smoothly. Next it was time to lift the 50+ pound transmission and hold it with millimeter precision while pushing it through all of the clutch parts towards the engine. It was as hard as it sounds, but it is done!

We also completed the modifications to the firewall needed to install the air conditioner. I didn't take a picture of it before tearing it back down, but you can see the hole created in the firewall anticipating the re-install once the engine is in.

One last shot of the kit for this week. We continue pulling pieces out of boxes and bolting them on. It's only a matter of time before we run out of boxes! Til next time...

Lots of Little Things This Week

We tackled a ton of little things this week as we draw ever closer to installing the engine. We installed the new air conditioning compressor with its custom bracket. We also installed several replacement wheel studs as the originals were damaged.

The brake master cylinder was installed. We'are awaiting a "final answer" on the proper way to plumb the brake lines before we connect all of the lines. At that point, we'll be able to bleed the brakes! Speaking of brakes, I finally figured out how to attach the flexible rear brake lines. We bought parts for the '93 Mustang that are new, but I needed to figure out how to attach them to the axle itself. We cut the bracket a bit and drilled a hole in the axle bracket; now it looks like it belongs there!

We installed the back of the transmission tunnel cover and fitted the cockpit rear wall.

Our wheels are another week or two away. Otherwise, the only part we're still waiting for is the radiator! We ended the day Sunday fitting and cutting the firewall to accomodate the air conditioning system. This week we have to find some aluminum and figure out how to bend it to create a "bump out" for the firewall.

We are also pursuing a few parts: grippy brake pads since our car won't have power brakes, one last brake line connector, and an intake manifold bolt that I broke weeks ago.

Once the air conditioning systen is installed in the firewall AND we receive the wheels, we can put the engine in the car. The engine install is probably 3 weeks away. Til next time...