After I published my last update, I realized I forgot to say something about the safety recall that showed up on my doorstep. As we all know, when you buy a car from a dealership you periodically receive an email or letter asking that you bring your car in for a repair or update of some sort. Ever wonder how that works when you build your own car? Now I know. A package shows up on your doorstep with a letter explaining the problem, instructions, and a bunch of parts! All joking aside, I have to say that I can not be more impressed with Factory Five Racing that they continue to listen to their customers (even after the sale) to address issues that appear to be more than "one off" problems. Before, during and after my build Factory Five proved themselves to be a top notch company that knows the value of a great product and great customer support. Sure, there were little "flaws" along the way that needed a bit of creative thinking to resolve, but this is a hand built car for crying out loud with thousands of parts that had to fit absolutely perfectly.
Without getting into too much detail, the issue being resolved with this recall had to do with asymmetrical tension transferring from the clutch quadrant to the pedal potentially leading to failure of the pedal. To put that another way....the clutch pedal could snap under the excessive pressures of a heavy duty clutch, which this car definitely has! The bag only contained 4 parts which seemed very encouraging. Now that the work is completed, however, Colleen and I have added 4 more parts to our growing "most impossible parts to reach" list! The fix involved removing the clutch cable from the transmission, removal of the clutch pedal and quadrant, modification of the quadrant to add additional bolt holes and then reassembly of everything in reverse order with the additional parts. This all sounds simple enough, until you consider that all of these parts were originally assembled with no body, engine or interior aluminum panels to get in the way. With all that now in place, every step involved handling parts often as small as a grain of rice in spaces too small or hard to reach for any normal human. In addition, much of this had to be done by feel when it was impossible to actually see the spaces. As you look at these picture, remember what I said earlier about needing kids or a trained monkey to build a car.
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| Taking everything apart. |
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| Still taking everything apart. |
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| Colleen through the car. |
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| Modifying the clutch quadrant. |
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| My constant companion and assistant through the entire build. |
And now for the best picture ever taken of the car during the entire process!
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| It's legal!! |
Brad apparently has lots of friends in Kansas because after beating my head for 6 months against the brick wall otherwise known as the Georgia DOT, Brad was able to accomplish the task in Kansas within a day! Note to Jeff Gump: This is exactly why I refuse to talk to anybody in Georgia! The speed at which Brad got this accomplished is a testament to the people of Kansas and what can happen when somebody is actually willing to help. Not only did the Saline County DOT go out of their way to help Brad work through what could have been a confusing process, but they went WAY out of their way to work with people at the state level to get an antique tag (and blue, to boot)! I can not tell you how happy I am to see this photograph!!
