It's now out of our hands.

Well, the long weekend with Brad, Christina and family has come and gone.  Everybody arrived on Thursday afternoon ready for a few days of golf carting, video gaming, school festivals and general goofing around with the cousins.  The primary goal for the trip, however, was to transport the car, now mechanically and electrically complete, up to Whitby Motorcars in North Carolina for final body work and paint (and a few additional items...more on that later).

On Friday I worked until lunch while everybody slept in to recover from the long trip.  Jim Strickland was nice enough to loan us his Toyota Sequoia, so after leaving work I picked up the auto trailer from U-Haul and arrived at home, where all the kids were already in high gear and Brad was in the garage tinkering.  Of course the first thing we did was roll the car out, fire it up, and have Brad give everybody rides around the block.  The girls loved it... some a bit too much if you ask me.  How soon do they turn 16?  And finally, Christina was able to drive the car for the first time.  As someone who spent countless hours installing thousands of rivets, tightening hundreds of bolts, fabricating countless modifications and connecting miles of wires, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when Christina strapped herself in and said "It's been a long time since I've driven a manual car."  All my worry was for nothing, though, as Christina did a great job and made it through our little 1/16 mile test track (down the street, around the park and back) safely.  No speed records broken, though, as Brad commented he wasn't sure if this car has ever been driven so cautiously (code word for "slow").

After everybody had several test laps, we set about getting the car up on the trailer.  For a normal car this process would have been a piece of cake.  When the car only has 4" of clearance, though, it takes a bit more ingenuity.  As it was, the ramp was a bit too steep so the bottom of the car would not clear the transition from ramp to trailer bed.  With a little head scratching, several 2x4s and using the slope of our driveway (Christina's idea) we were able to get the car on the trailer with about 1/4" to spare.  The only casualty was one bolt from the side pipe heat shield that caught an edge and snapped (of course nothing is standard on this car, so a $15 replacement has already been ordered and is on the way).  The custom car cover from California hadn't arrived in time, so after covering the car with a slightly modified (grommets added for tie towns) temporary cover, we were all off for the Fall Festival at the kids' school.

At 5 on Saturday morning Brad and I met in the hallway, both looking a bit tired, ready for our 6 1/2 hour journey to Greensboro, North Carolina.  OK, so the most commonly asked question we get as soon as we say North Carolina is, "Doesn't anybody in Atlanta paint cars"?  And the answer is yes, there are lots of people in Atlanta who paint cars.  There are not a lot of people, however, who have competed the body work and painted almost 300 of this specific brand of replica.  After lots of discussion, we decided it was worth the extra drive time to get the car into the hands of somebody who had "seen it all" and would be prepared to handle any of the quirks of working with a Factory Five car.  And after spending nearly 3 hours with Jeff at Whitbys (and learning about all the quirks) we know we made the perfect decision.  I'm getting ahead of myself, though.  The drive was actually very uneventful.  My biggest fear was that at some point I would look out my window to see the trailer passing us on the left, or I would look in the rear view mirror to see an empty trailer.  Since I didn't start this blog entry with a major announcement, I'm proud to say that we experienced neither of these disastrous, although rather exciting sounding, scenarios.  Two bags of beef jerky, 4 cups of coffee, two bananas, a bag of sunflower seeds and 8 Chick-Fil-A Chicken Minis later we found ourselves in Greensboro, North Carolina unloading the car.  Having learned our lessons loading the car, the unload was simple and uneventful.

Three hours touring Whitby Motorcars and talking with owner Jeff Conner is like turning two kids loose in a giant candy/toy/shiny breakable objects store.  We saw at least 6 Roadsters in various states of assembly, 2 '33 Hot Rods, 2 GTM Supercars and several other non-Factory Five cars too numerous to mention.  What caught our eyes, however, was one particular blue and white Roadster that was nearly complete for a client in New Orleans.  My pictures don't do the car justice, but the "fit and finish" was absolutely perfect.  Everything about the car was perfect, and if you hadn't known it was a replica car you would have sworn it came directly off a showroom floor.  Jeff is a perfectionist, and I was very excited to find that this car represented the standard for finished cars.  If Brad's car looks anything like this car, it's going to be spectacular!  We shared with Jeff the 3 page list we compiled during our drive, listing every possible item we could think of that needed, attention or addition.  After Christina's test drive, Brad decided to add power steering.  I told Brad that I was all for it as long as I didn't have to install it.  You may recall my story about the last minute addition of power brakes a few months back.  Well, to make a long story short it nearly killed me.  Jeff took the complete list in stride and didn't seem shocked by anything.  Like I said before, we definitely took the car to the right person.

Aside from a totally uneventful return drive to Peachtree City, which included listening to K-State go to 6-0 for the season by somehow beating Texas Tech, this is where the story will end for several months.  Hopefully I will be able to post a few progress photos from Whitbys (but based on Jeff's computer competence don't count on much), the next photos you will hopefully see will be of a finished car in 3-4 months.

Here are a few photos from our journey and time spent at Whitbys.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photos, but they're from my phone.

Ready to go.

Brad either hopped up on coffee or asleep behind the
sunglasses, I couldn't quite tell.



Handing over the keys after the drive was a huge weight
off our shoulders!



Roadsters in various states of completion.  The Wimbledon White
of this car will be the stripe color of Brad's car. 

This car was actually painted by the client with a
roller using epoxy paint.  Jeff's still not sure how he's
going to get the paint off.

Again, EVERY state of completion.

GTM Supercar.  $90,000 invested by the client and still
not finished.

Nearly completed example of Whiby quality.

Hopefully there will be more progress photos to follow....

Weekend visit by Brad. More progress...and a Sunday drive.

Well, Brad has come and gone for another productive weekend with the car.  Our goal was to trial fit as many of the body components as possible before Brad's return visit in mid-October, when we hope to trailer the car up to North Carolina for body work and paint.  While here, we all got to go the the car show in Senoia, Georgia and watch K-State beat Miami (Florida, not Ohio) in football!!

On Saturday, we got up early to get a head start on the car.  The first thing we did was open all the remaining boxes and lay all out all the pieces for inventory.  We figured that as long as there were still pieces on the garage floor, there was more work to be done.  It's amazing that my garage has gone from being piled high with boxes to only having a blanket full of pieces left.  I have now consolidated the remaining pieces into a couple of small boxes stored in the third-car garage.  Our main garage is now totally free of car parts....Leslie couldn't have been more excited.

At about mid-day on Saturday, we took a break to the Senoia car show in the hopes of seeing some Cobras.  We saw some great old cars in addition to the three Cobra replicas that were entered in the show.  None of the three was manufactured by Factory Five but Brad and I studied each one carefully, looking for any great ideas or improvements we could make to our car.  I may be biased, but I have to say that while each of the three Cobras was nice in one way or another, the consistent quality and detail of ours seems to stand apart.  I won't say it's perfect, but every time I see somebody elses replica it reminds me just how nice ours is.

We returned from the car show just in time to watch the K-State football game.  Brad and I tried to shuttle back and forth from the TV to the garage to get work done whenever there was a break in the game.  You may have noticed at this point that Brad has been in town almost a full day now and it doesn't appear that much actual car work is taking place.  Well, Brad and I worked non-stop in the garage after the game until 2:30 on Sunday morning.  Twice during the night Leslie called down and "politely" suggested that all our banging may be keeping up the neighborhood.  During the long night we were able to install the windshield wiper stems, windshield, rear view mirrors and roll bars.  We were also able to complete the installation of the lights, fuel cap and front wheel wells.

Senoia, GA car show.  Looks pretty good, but...

What do his wheel wells look like?

Roll bars and trim rings.

Rear view and side mirror installation.

It was a long night, so I kind of lost track of what I was fixing here.

Adjusting the windshield.

More chrome trim.

The kids came out in the morning to see what we had done all night.

On Sunday to reward ourselves for a long productive night, we took the car off the jack stands (hopefully for the last time) and rolled it out to admire our work.  And while we had it out in the sun we figured we might as well take it around the block a few times!

It kind of looks like a car now.

Belting in for a drive.

Didn't start on the first try...so all I have to do is hit this handy switch here.

 

I had never tested the new power brakes, so I suggested that he take it slow for this first trip around the block.  Maybe he didn't hear me?

Lots of progress in several areas.

Not a lot to explain, but I thought I would post pictures from the many areas of the car that are getting attention these days.  As you can see, the body is back on the car and I'm beginning to trial fit all of exterior accessories.  All the parts attached to the body needs to be pre-fit and drilled before everything gets shipped off for final body work.

Heel pads set into carpet at pedals.

Transmission tunnel carpet.

Exposed transmission tunnel fasteners.

Transmission carpet with leather edging.

Trial fitting all lights.

Wheel well fabrication.

Overall cockpit view.

What my garage looks like these days.

Another view of the cockpit.

Carpet Progress

Just a short post to say that carpet installation is going well.  Everybody online said that if you take your time, carpet installation isn't too difficult.  I'm happy to report that they were right.

Leather wrapped around exposed framing behind seat.

Rear cockpit wall.

Chrome bezel around seatbelt.

Footwell carpet with inset heel pads.

Only outer wall left, then the driver's side footwell will be done.

Insulation done, now on to upholstery and interior trim

Just a quick post to announce that I have now completed installing the three layers of insulation.  The first was a relatively thin, but dense sticky rubber mastic that covered the entire cockpit.  This was the material that Colleen was rolling into place with a wood roller in my last post.  The intent of this first layer is to work its way into all the nooks and crannies and eliminate any rattles or vibrations.  The second layer is a thick, very dense rubber material that will eliminate any louder noise such as impact from road debris.  This second layer covers the entire floor board of the cockpit.  And finally, the third layer is a fairly thin closed cell foam sandwiched between two foil faces.  The intent of this final layer is to block as much heat as possible from entering the cockpit.  This final material is installed on all of the cockpit faces situated close to hot components of the car (engine, transmission, side pipes, etc...).  I doubled up this layer on the driver and passenger foot well walls in an effort to block as much heat from the engine as possible.

There are still quite a few little odd and ends to tackle, but the next big job will be the interior upholstery and interior trim (chrome).

A lot of work....not a whole lot of forward progress.

I know, I know, it's been a LONG time since my last post.  Well, a lot has happened since then with not a lot of progress to show for the effort.  After the test drive, we decided that a few additions would make the car even better.  First, Brad decided the car needed power brakes.  The car had no problem going....so Brad figured a little extra help stopping might be nice.  Second, we decided to add power fresh air intakes for the driver's side and passenger's side foot wells.  And last but definitely not least, two cup holders.  Sounds easy, huh?  Well, let the fiasco begin!!

First, the power brakes.  Brad found a complete setup which included the vacuum brake booster, new master cylinder, new pedals that fit with the system and have the AC logo pedals of the originals and all the necessary screws, nuts, adapters and templates.  See if you can spot a trend in the next few sentences.  The chassis needed to be modified in order for the vacuum brake booster to fit.  In order to modify the chassis the remote brake reservoirs needed to be moved.  In order to move the reservoirs to the new location recommended by the manufacturer, the oil dip stick needed to be moved.  In order to move the dip stick to the new location, the steering shaft needed to be disassembled in order to get enough working clearance.  But wait, there's still more.  In order to get the new pedals in I needed to removed the pedal assembly.  And of course in order to remove the pedal assembly I needed to remove the side aluminum on the driver's side foot box.  And finally, once the new vacuum brake booster was in place the front portion of the brake lines needed to be rerun to the new master cylinder.  It would have been a whole lot easier to say that I had to disassemble the left side of the car, but then you wouldn't have appreciated the comedy of it all.  This all was, of course, rather daunting so I decided to weave the process in with the other two items, the air vents and the cup holders.

Vacuum brake assist.  Notice modified frame bolted into place.

It was a tight fit, which is why so many things needed to be moved around.

New AC pedals.

Relocated reservoirs and new chrome dip stick.

Next, the air vent.  The air vents are basically large flexible hoses that catch air from scoops concealed behind the nose of the car.  The fresh air is pushed along by an in-line fan controlled by two switches (driver and passenger) located under the center of the dash for easy access by either driver or passenger.  The hose is then attached to the top of foot wells with a shut-off gate in case you want to stop all air.  Installing the passenger side air vent was actually very easy because I didn't have to work around much.  I had to wait on the driver's side because I wasn't sure what space would be available once everything mentioned above was moved and installed.

Passenger side fresh air intake tubing.  Tubing to nose of car in front of fan not installed yet in this picture.

Entry into top of foot box.

Shut-off gate inside foot well.

 
And finally, the cup holders.  We decided that two chrome cup holders centered between the seats would be great.  Marking the locations of the steel structure on the transmission tunnel aluminum, I found that I could just fit the holders between the steel frame and the drive shaft below.  Now I have to set the scene just a bit.  While working in the engine compartment to remove all the stuff I mentioned above, I got tired of constantly running back and forth grabbing new tools.  My solution...a board laid across the front chassis of the car to hold all the tools so they were within easy reach.  Brilliant!  Now back to the cup holders.  The  transmission tunnel was already securely fastened to the car so I decided to cut the holes in the aluminum in place with a jig saw.  The first hole went great and I was on to the second.  What I didn't realize was that the vibrations from the jig saw were causing the tools to move ever so slightly toward the edge of the board.  Just as I was completing the second hole, I heard a loud crash as every tool seemed to fall off the board at the same time.  I was sitting in the cockpit of the car at the time and so could not see the front of the car.  I froze and waited for a second in the hopes that everything would be ok.  That's when I noticed the tiny stream of green coolant shooting across the front of the garage and all over the work bench.  I scrambled out of the car as quickly as I could to find a bucket.  So now you have to picture the scene;  It's about 11 at night and I'm standing with a big steel bucket trying to catch all of the coolant as it's shooting from the front of the car.  It was a complete mess with coolant not only shooting about 5 feet through the air but also running out the bottom all over the floor.  Apparently what had happened was that a large screw driver had fallen tip first directly into one of the tiny aluminum fins that makes up the radiator, and then ripped the fin even more as the heavy handle twisted the screw driver down.  For obvious reasons I couldn't get to sleep that night, so I spent a good portion of the night researching if it was possible to fix a radiator leak.  What I found was that there were in indeed fixes, but that they were temporary at best.  The final straw was when I read a post saying that it was cheaper to replace a radiator that an overheated engine!  I had to call Brad the next day with a "I have good news and bad news" call.  The good news was that the cup holders looked great!

Cup holders.  The black is the first layer of sound insulation.

 
I am happy to say tonight that I just completed all of the steps described above except for the driver's side air vent.  A ton of work to basically get back to where we were back in March.  Ok, with better brakes and ventilation.

In the midst of all of this, I did manage to move forward installing sound insulation in the cockpit of the car.  The process involves building paper templates of every potion of aluminum, transferring the template to the rubberized insulation and then installing to the car with a wooden roller to make sure the rubber backing works it's way into all the seams and fasteners.  The kids seemed to like this step and helped out quite a bit.  This step is not complete, but I would estimate that I'm about 75% finished.  Once the insulation is complete, on to carpet and interior finish.

Rolling in the sound insulation.

Hard at work.

Another visit from Brad.....another milestone!

Well, Brad and Terry (Christina's dad) made it to Peachtree City on Friday evening for a short weekend visit.  They were supposed to arrive in the afternoon, but Brad's flight out of Wichita had mechanical problems so Terry and I spent a couple of hours in the Atlanta airport food court waiting for Brad to arrive.  Our big picture goal was to take this thing out for it's first drive before Brad and Terry had to leave on Sunday afternoon.  On the drive back to the house we picked up pizza.  While waiting outside for the pizza I received a call that Brian, a mechanic for Delta who has helped out occasionally, was in the area eating dinner and had his timing light we could pick up.  So after getting the pizza, off we went to meet the mechanic to pick up his timing light.  In addition to getting the light, Brian said that he would be happy to swing by the house after his dinner to help set the engine timing.  So, to recap our adventure before even getting back to the house.....we spent a couple of hours in the airport food court, and then picked up a pizza and a mechanic. With barely enough time to drop off their suitcases when we arrived back at the house, we had the car out onto the driveway fired up.  What a way to get introduced to the car!  I've never timed an engine before, but apparently the process involves cranking up the RPMs a lot on several occasions.  A whole lot of fun if you love listening to the rumble of a very loud engine.  Apparently not a whole lot of fun if your trying to watch TV at 7:00 at night.  Leslie told me later that a neighbor down the block jumped onto Facebook and complained that "some damn teenagers were revving up their car engines!"  Revving up their engines, yes....teenagers, no.  Saturday morning started early with Terry discovering the problem behind our misbehaving radiator fan.  We had previously bypassed the dash cooling fan switch in luau of an automatic system and forgot to take the disconnected dash switch wiring out of the electrical loop.  It's always great to have a mechanic/electrician on hand who understands wiring diagrams!  And here's the best part....Terry was eager to jump right in so he took it upon himself to find the wires in question and fix the problem.  All I had to do was take off the dash so he could get to the wires.  With the cooling fan now operational, we were technically ready to take the car for a spin.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating and a series of storms had moved in.  After watching the weather over lunch we decided to continue working on miscellaneous "to do" items on the car for the remainder of Saturday, and hope for the forcasted clearer weather on Sunday morning for the first test drive.  So for the remainder of the day we put on the final pieces of cockpit aluminum, tidied up loose wiring, installed turning restrictor clips, seats, seatbelts and rollbars.  And in between all of these tasks, we took time to check out some of the progress I had made since Brad was in town last.  Oh yeah, and we stopped to watch K-State defeat ISU for the final home game of the season!  Every Man a Wildcat!

Everybody's working on something.

Lunch break.

On Sunday the weather improved a bit.  It was still cold, but at least it stopped raining.  At around 10 we wheeled the car out onto the garage for the first test drive.  Eric, who is building a similar car and has helped out quite a bit with labor and advise, happened to be in the general area and called to ask if we would be working on the car at all today.  I told him that if he could get to the house quick, he could watch the first test drive.  He must have been close, because he showed up within a couple of minutes.  Either that or he drove real fast.  Everybody stood around with video cameras at the ready, Brad turned the key and......nothing!  With flight plans looming, everybody jumped into action and reviewed everything that had been done since the last time the engine started.  It turned out that in the course of correcting some of my wiring mistakes, Terry had inadvertently disconnected a wire.  Terry fixed the problem within 10 minutes, and we had the engine rumbling.  Have I mentioned how handy it is to have an electrician on hand?

Getting ready for first drive.

Below are links to videos of the first and second drives.  There were several, but they were all basically the same...up the block around the park and turn around in the driveway.  Short but sweet!  We started off slow in the first drive so we could listen for any unusual sounds.  And I kept think about the thousands of parts and connections that all had to be just right to keep the engine or wheels from flying off.  I didn't tell Brad that part, but believe me they were all going through my mind as I was strapping in.  With each successive ride, we pushed the car a little harder as we became more familiar with it's driving characteristics.  I have to say the car seemed to drive great.  Everything seemed very solid and responsive.  There's no way you'll enjoy these videos as much as I enjoyed driving the car for the first time, but here they are:FFR #7112 First Test DriveFFR #7112 Second Test Drive Interesting side notes about these test drives.  First, you can't see it but a full-sized fire extinguisher rode between Brad and I during the test drives just in case.  Keep in mind we've never done this before.  I had a feeling the car would either drive great or explode.  And second, the day was pretty cold so I thought it had begun sleeting just as we were heading down the road.  It turns out we were being pelted in the face with all the gravel from the road being thrown off the front tires.  Remember, no body or windshield at this point.  Subsequent test drives involved safety glasses.

FFR #7112 Third Test Drive....just kidding

Next Up....cockpit and trunk insulation and sound dampening material, replacing the small portion of brake line that I had mentioned in an earlier post, adjusting the clutch cable based on information learned in these tests, and Brad is beginning discussions with a body shop to take care of the final body work and assembly.  This thing is VERY close to being out of my control.