Overdue for an Update

It's been a full year since my last post. I am happy to report that we have over 4,000 miles on the Coupe now. We make new friends every time we take it out for a drive, and we drive it often.

Speaking of drives, we had a memorable drive last June when we drove to Ohio to participate in the London Cobra Show. We took part in a carshow in downtown London Ohio. We also got to drive a couple of laps of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course during a vintage car race weekend.  Here's a short video recapping the trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2XsYl9ZLI

We also washed the car and took it to a local park. The mounds of Moundville Alabama made a nice backdrop:

 

 

We continue to be amazed at what we were able to build. The car has yet to strand us anywhere, and we look forward to years of fun with it.

Sorry for the lack of updates, we've been out driving!

It's been two weeks, and its been a blast so far! We finished all but the headlight cover install. We went and visited all of the auto parts places to show them what we've been working on all this time.

We've been looking for little problems, and have found a few. The first time we took it into town, we separated the throttle cable from where it connects on the engine. We coasted into a parking lot and had it fixed in a couple of minutes.

We've had a persistent but very small coolant leak somewhere on the front of the engine. We also had a vibration that turned out to be a flapping piece of aluminum ductwork under the radiator. That was fixed yesterday with some thicker aluminum reinforcement and a bunch of rivets.

We finally got the speedometer working just this morning, so the odometer has started recording mileage.

We'll have to get some in-car footage soon, but for now here is some video my son shot while we were looking for the vibration that I mentioned. Link to video

Yahoo!

What a week! We had the windshield installed Friday by a professional, then went to the DMV for license plates. Quite surprisingly, things went very well there and I came home with a tag for the car.

We called and got insurance,and installed the metal mesh in the hood openings.

Finally, we finished trimming the rear hatch and installed it with a latch and supports to hold it open. We are waiting on some slightly thicker weatherstrip before applying it to the rear hatch area and removing the tape.

Sunday afternoon, we aligned the car and took it for a few test drives on the road. We even stopped for gas. This thing is now a real car!

to do in the next week or so:

-install door mirrors

-seal the exhaust to the headers

-calibrate the speedometer

-aim the headlights and install the headlight covers

-wash the car!

..oh yeah, and put a few more miles on the odometer! :-)

Good Progress and a Joyride

Lots of pictures to share since our last update. We mounted the side exhausts.

We mounted the fire extinguisher (just in case) and a few more covered roll bar pads.

We mounted the scoops. Back in 1965 when these were just racecars, the scoops were used to force air into rear brake-cooling ducts. Nowadays, they'll force air into the interior when our side windows are open.

We finished wiring the dash and made sure everything works, then installed the dashboard. It's removable, too!

For now, it is sitting just a little lower than it should. We need about 1/2" more height in the front and almost an inch in the rear.

We decided to roll it out in the sun for some pictures. Pardon the dust, we haven't washed it yet.

I tell people that the car sits very low. It's been on jackstands for a year and a half, and even I forget how low it will sit on the road. When you see it next to a normal car you finally realize HOW low it sits.

This is the view out the passenger side of the Coupe.

We went for a short joyride in the neighborhood yesterday. You can see a real short clip of it by clicking here. The water pump from the donor Mustang decided that it is ready to be replaced. In the next couple of weeks, we will install the windshield and rear hatch, replace the water pump, perform an alignment and get license plates and insurance.

Woo hoo. we're almost on the road!

Empty Boxes

We've been busy installing parts, so let's get to them! We installed the seats and the 5-point racing harness. I also temporarily installed my copilot.

We put the hood and front lights on.

After un-installing the copilot, we installed all of the rear lights and the shifter boot.

Next we installed the wipers. The wiper mounts swivel in unison thanks to a cable that runs between them and back to the motor. You can see a picture here of the 3/8" fuel line that we bent and flared, then installed under the cowl to link the wipers. The wiper blades will go on once we have a windshield, but we did have fun watching the zip-tie we put on the wiper mount moving when we hit the switch.

This is the wiper motor. The relay we added on the left adds a "park" feature to the wipers, which is the probably most complex electrical function anywhere in the car.

Next we turned our attention to the doors. We were a little nervous that the removal and re-installation of the body, painting, etc would move something out of alignment. We figured this change would show itself when we tried to install the doors. Fortunately, they turned out great!

You've seen our opening rear windows before, but since we removed the protective film and you can actually see through them, we thought we'd post more pictures. Here you see the window both open and closed. Those who have one of these cars say that this really helps with interior temperatures.

Sharp-eyed observers will also note a couple pieces of roll bar padding installed with a nice stitched-vinyl cover. My wife is doing a super job on the covers, and we'll feature them we we get them installed.

It is still winter, so we are able to spend less time than we'd like on the car. Still, we're down to just a couple of boxes of things to install. Stay tuned!

The Body is On!

We received our replacement shocks and got them installed. We wasted no time dropping the body onto the chassis.

We took a quick drive down the street to test out the brakes on our nasty garage wheels, and the brakes work great!

While the body settled back onto the chassis, we tackled a few things that don't require the body to be bolted down. We cut the roll bar padding, drilled some drainage holes in the rear hatch opening, installed the fuel filler door, and built some wooden ramps to raise the car far enough off of the ground to use our floor jack.

We also covered the switch panel with vinyl and installed the switches. If you click on the second picture you can see the labels that we had made last spring. The company that made them was swept away by the April tornado in Tuscaloosa.

We also addressed a few pieces that prevented the body from sitting in the same spot that it did when we were doing body work. The changes will now start coming very quickly. We'll try to remember to take pictures so you can see the progress.

Great progress this week!

With good weather and some extra time off of work (and off of school for my able assistant), we made some very good progress this week.

We spent some time on the brakes again. We've always had some air trapped somewhere and just haven't been able to chase it out. We also realized that our hopes of using a 1993 Mustang brake master cylinder on 1994 Mustang brake calipers wasn't going to work. The '93s had drum brakes in the rear, so the master cylinder is different. We also found a new leak in a brake line connector. After replacing the connector and the master cylinder, we did some brake bleeding and now have a great-feeling brake pedal that we can't wait to test out. We also installed the brake and clutch pedal covers to match the throttle pedal.

We applied a truck bedliner product to the underside of the hood and portions of the body. It looks really nice, and provides some protection to the inside of the fender wells in case we kick up a rock on the road.

We also decided that we aren't going to flip the body over to glue on a headliner for the interior, so we put truck bed liner on it as well.

We fabricated and installed a few block off plates to help weatherproof the interior, and added silicone caulk to a bunch of places that needed it. We trimmed the transmission tunnel cover and installed riveted-in nuts to hold the cover in place. We drilled a hole in each side of the floor to install the "anti-submarine belt". These are race car seatbelts, and one of the 5 straps comes up between your legs to keep you from sliding under the belts in an accident.

At this point we have nothing left on the list that must be done before the body goes back on the car. However, we do need our replacement shocks from Koni before we can move the chassis to give us room to drop the body on. For now, we're working on a dwindling list of things that we can do without the body on the car.

We are getting very close!