Cleaning up odds and ends: clutch pedal, hoses, e-brake, AL panel install

Vintage air system install.  I keep complaining about it just in case you haven't figured out you should never buy this system. 

Question: how helpful are the instructions from FFR and Vintage for actually installing a working system in your Type 65:

Answer:... Nothing heard, Out.

 

I have finally made all of the connections for this air system.  As I have frequently griped for months it is severely lacking in actual application to the overall car.  Nothing fits.  I took a couple of quarters of Russian in college.  My TA was Korean who learned to speak Russian, then English.  The instructions for the Vintage air kit read like someone who took a couple of wildly different languages from English and then tried to write instructions for a system they have never seen to be installed in a car they have never heard about.  With the vacuum connection to the intake manifold I installed the final piece.  Of course whether or not it all works won't be seen for a few more months.  The pictures are of the dehydrator and trinary switch and you can see how I routed the heater hoses through the original Mustang wiring harness computer connection in the top of the passenger footbox, as well as the AC hoses themselves.  I also finally found a local A/C shop that will do custom hoses.  It is a rare skillset few places want to do anymore because it is not cheap when the crimping dies break.  I paid $12 per fitting, and considered it a bargain after the time it took to find anyone to do it.  I also forgot that I had moved the evaporator about two inches to the passenger side after fitting the revised dash ducts and hoses.  I did this to allow the heater and coolant supply lines to fit in the top of the footbox.  Thankfully I was able to just push it all back where it was originally but I need to redo the supply lines inside the footbox to the heater itself.  A minor thing after all the other struggles.  I also had to get a new drain hose as the one with the kit is about 18 inches too short to actually drain outside the passenger footbox.  One of those kind-of-important things.

 

 

 

Emergency brake: another thing that comes with dubious instructions on how to install.  The most important point is you must re-drill the mounting holes on the horizintal bracket piece with the ratcheting teeth at 5 and 11/16 inches on center to actually fit in the Type 65.  I also had to cut a separate length of 1/4 - 28 twist bolt to make the eyebolts work for it as the length is just a little too short to make it work.  Finally I had to widen the hole in the passenger floor pan so the whole thing would move without interference.  I also glued some Teflon sliders to the main frame tube underneath the car to make sure the cables moved freely without cutting grooves in the powder coat.  The picture is of the modified bolt and the final install of the brake handle from underneath the car.

 

Electrical: after much work and rework all of the electrical cables and connections are where they are supposed to be, with the exception of the fan thermo switch.  I may end up swapping that out with the heater hose supply line from the manifold.  I routed the heater hose to the back of the gooseneck for the thermostat which is typically where it runs for normal Ford 351W installs on production vehicles.  The "instructions" from Vintage Air were surprisingly less than helpful.

 

Clutch pedal: I found out the hard way that not only was the steering wheel mount installed a little off on my frame, FFR also didn't account for the new Wilwood pedal width and the old frame trusses from the front end to the dash.  My clutch pedal had about 1.5 inches of travel before it hit the 1" truss from the dash to the frame.  After considering lots of options (cutting and welding in a bend in the 1" tube, or shaving the pedal bracket down and hoping it didn't fail) my brother in law looked at it and said why don't you simply have a new pedal arm made with essentially an S curve in it.  I fab'd up a plywood piece to test the theory.  I found a local metal fabrication guy and he forged one for me (vice just cutting it out) from 1/2" high strength steel.  He made it perfectly and for 100 bucks I now have a very nice, custom pedal arm that still works with the adjustable pedals the Wilwood kit came with.  I had to use Teflon washers to get it centered in the original Wilwood pedal assy bracket but it swings freely and I have plenty of clutch now.  I shot it with a coat of appliance epoxy and installed it.  The picture shows it from the outside of the driver's pedal box where it fits perfectly and looks pretty good.  It will be hidden anyway so it really doesn't matter.  More importantly I found a fantastic metal fab guy here in Jacksonville, who can also make house calls.  Wish I had met him when I needed to fix the steering wheel alignment.  Sounds like my pedal and steering wheel problems only affected a few frames, but they are significant if ignored.

 

 

 

Aluminum panel install: After several months of procrastinating I finally started to install the interior AL panels.  It looks much more like a car now.  The main floor/transmission tunnel pieces needed some trimming for the top trans tunnel piece to fit properly.  I also modified the trans tunnel to accept a cable for the electronic clock I am installing in the center dash console, which requires a constant battery power source.  It bypasses the battery cutoff switch.  I originally painted all of the exterior of the AL panels with spray can undercoat.  For the trans tunnel top piece I did the same thing, then covered it with white exterior high gloss spray paint to provide some reflective light in case I need to solve some other problems from underneath the car.  Staring at a dark trans tunnel laying on the floor is hard enough so the white paint helps light things up.  For the trans itself because I am using the RF wiring kit, I did not need the mechanical speedo plug.  The Tremec instructions say to order the mech speedo block off plug from any authorized Tremec dealer, of which I found none when looking online.  I thought about using the Mike Forte one, which looks pretty and works very well.  It was also ten times the cost of a rubber/bolt compression block off plug from Napa.  I will be back to Mike's site though as he has lots of very nicely done add ons for these kits.

 

Next step is final dash install work.  From there I will have all gauges done (wired those harnesses almost a year ago now) and can start it and drive the gokart.  Although I haven't posted in a while I have spent some time solving the problems.  I have to be done by next May as the Navy will probably send me somewhere else.  Times a tickin'.

 

AC Heat ducting solved,installed foot box panels

This picture shows the top dash panel (I split my dash panel into two pieces) lifted up to show the under dash window vent on the passenger side and the main supply plenum I made to route the five dash and foot box vents into to primary lines feeding the dash.  The Vintage Air system came with seven supply ducts explained below.

After a couple months of recovering from the flu shot (down for two weeks with the nose spray version, never trust Navy medicine), travelling to the Indian Ocean, and then Norfolk I was finally able to design a supply duct to fit under the dash and still allow me to run a line to the passenger side window defrost vent.  The A/C came with outlets for seven supply lines: two for defrost, two for feet, and three for dash.  As my control panel doesn't have a separate foot and dash diverter it made no sense to keep those lines separate, and I never use foot vents on any other car I own anyway so I decided to combine them all.  Instead of five tubes for heat and feet crammed under the dash with a resultant Igor-like hump in it I combined five into two and will then split the line for the dash center and driver side vent in the middle of the dash area.  The two defrost vents still work independently but I had to design a new inlet hole and plenum to route it to the pre-cut dash vent on the passenger side.  Driver works fine with the plastic piece the kit came with.  Once again I borrowed from cbergquist1 for the basic idea and modified it for my needs.  The FFR instructions are (as previously wanked about) useless as they only really discuss mounting the compressor to the engine block and given I went with The Engine Factory's recommendation for the March Pulley mount the FFR instructions were unvaluable (as opposed to invaluable).  The Vintage Air instructions are generic to something sort of like a 40 Ford Hot Rod and explain nothing.  I have very few complaints about the whole process of building this car and ALL of them stem from this heater/ac system.  The picture shows how the two work together under the dash with the resultant four lines feeding the vent locations.  Although not visible in the photo I did cut corresponding holes in the bottom of the main supply manifold I built (the long metal box taking up most of the picture to match the five supply vents from the dash unit.  I wanted to ensure as tight a fit as possible and make it fit in the space provided under the dash panel. 

Separately, I also made the correct connections from the Ron Francis wiring harness to the corresponding sending units, coil, choke, etc.  I had to relocate the water temp sending unit as I finally got around to watching the excellent video The Engine Factory sent with my 351W and found they had explained much of what I stared stupidly at, like which port to screw the temp sensor into on the manifold.  The un-seen but named "Robert" who built the motor did a great job pointing it all out.  It finally dawned on me to watch the CD they sent with it to see how they hooked it up when they ran it.  Stupid will get you a long way, but always short of the goal. 

I am finally ready to final-install most of the cockpit panels so I ordered a box of RAMMAT acoustic mats and some of their padding.  It is far cheaper than dynamat and they make a good point that 500 degree mat doesn't matter when everything else is on fire already - including the occupant.  "Sorry ma'am, the car and your husband were destroyed in the fire but the dynamat is still intact."  I am initially just going to do the inside foot box panels as they will be challenging at best when finally installed.  This way I can cut and fit the mat before I rivet the panels in place (afternote - didn't do this as I got busy and realized I needed to wait until I had them each installed).  I will also use heat insulation on  the engine side of the fire wall, wrap the headers in exhaust wrap, and paint it all with heat resistant BBQ paint so the inside temp should be manageable, for a Cobra-style car.  Thus the decision to struggle through figuring out how to make the a/c work.  My dear wife told me to just throw it away and buy the 'other one' the smart guys use.  What I make up for in stupid I balance with stubborn.  A magic combination.  I did find though that fitting and refitting these panels, plus fitting everything else on the car before finally installing them was the right way to go.  If you follow the build manual you will not do this and will likely regret it.  I used white Silicone II (doesn't interact with Aluminum like regular silicone sealants will) and riveted everything quite solidly.  I will also do a thin bead of Silicone II along all panel seams when I am done to make sure they are water tight.

Finally I prepared the rear compartment panels with the undercoating paint.  All of them are ready and will be installed over the next couple of weeks.

For a really big deal, my friend Carl who is also a fantastic graphic artist with his computer, created a digital file to use as a basis for trying out different color options on the car.  You can literally create any color combination in the world, save the file and use it as a basis for making paint choices.  We did a few sample color panels which I will print out and compare for a few months.  It was great to see him and I really appreciate the effort he put into giving me a fantastic tool for choosing colors.  Carl my friend I can't thank you enough.

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and are off to the beginning of a Happy New Year.  

Motor, transmission, wheels, misc

I reached the point in the build where I needed to put the motor and trans in the car, so I did.  The transmission bolted up to the bell housing very easily.  I had The Engine Factory ship me a complete transmission so the clutch plate, throw-out, bell housing, etc. were already installed.  I chose to remove the temporary rubber plug they ship the transmission with , although their instructions say it is okay to just leave it in place and it will push forward with the transmission input shaft.  I swung the motor with the engine hoist I bought at Northern Tool & Equipment.  I chose not to use the Harbor Freight option as it had too many complaints.  The NTE one I bought bolted together quite easily all things considered and works very well.  It came with an engine leveler as well and that thing was worth it.  I bolted the transmission to it and lifted it in as a single item.  I put the wheels and tires on before I did the motor as I wanted the car to be fully supported by its own suspension before adding the lump in the front.  A car without wheels and tires is a front yard "objet de art." With wheels and tires it looks most excellent, like someday it will actually move under its own power.  The wheel dollies worked very well and I am still able to move it around as need be in my smallish garage.  The engine hoist fit very well between the dollies and the frame.  Scott helped guide the trans in and between the two of us we had it done in less than 30 minutes.  The motor mounts supplied with the kit fit perfectly and landed on the frame with no additional effort.  The trans mount fit like a glove and required no adjustment.  I figured this would be a weekend long project with lots of swearing.

Most of the time since my last update has been spent continuing to work on small things.  Like I "assumed" the motor used an attached fuel pump.

So when I originally ran the fuel lines I didn't think about needing to plumb in the electric fuel pump Engine Factory sent.  I finally figured it all out this past weekend and the fuel lines are complete.  I mounted the pump to the passenger side main chassis tube as it is the only solid hard point below the gas tank, a requirement for this pump otherwise it can become air-bound.  I had to rewire the Ron Francis harness which uses a standard Mustang wet electric fuel pump for an injected engine inside the tank.  It worked well other than needing to elongate the wires which I spliced in the middle to keep the markings correct neat the terminal ends.

A lot of time spent on other wiring projects like the neutral safety switch, more engine wiring, dash wiring, a/c wiring, etc.  Lots more to do though to make sure it is all neat and clean. 

I decided to mount the brake fluid reservoir to the engine compartment side of the driver's footbox inside panel.  I added a stiffener made from 1.5 inch wide AL flat stock and mounted it on the interior side of the panel.  The supply line will need a grommet to keep it from chafing and keep hot engine air out of the people compartment.  I am not installing power brakes (yet - wait until I'm too old to push it and have enough money to buy it).  I do wonder how long it will be before the Great Parent of All of Us (government) decides to require little black boxes in all cars.  Thus far the kit cars don't require them but it likely won't be long until the Great Parent decides to ensure our safety for us.

My big delay now is it is too humid in FL to paint any of the panels so I can start installing them.  I'm finally at the point where I need to affix things permanently but the paint I am using, most notably the undercoat for exterior exposed panels, doesn't like to cure in 90% humidity.  I can only hang so many curing car parts in the kitchen before my wife starts reminding me of the time I rebuilt my old Honda 750's four carburetors in her living room in college.  I'll never live that down.

I plan to spend the next few weeks cleaning up a lot of unfinished electrical and plumbing work, measure (twice), and cut the a/c supply/return lines and have them professionally crimped by a local shop. 

Finally, a huge thank you goes out to Bruce and Vicki.  That was a fantastic dinner and I can't thank you enough for the excellent poster. They gave me a very cool art poster of a Cobra Coupe done up like a movie poster.  It was done by the Shelby American Automobile Club a few years ago and has all of the names of the drivers for the original cars on it.  It will have a place of honor in the garage as soon as I get it framed.  

Tail light access panels, a/c continues

I shifted to working on the trunk area AL panels.  A few builders added rear access panels on the back of the sidewalls in the rear to access the tail lights.  The lights on the Type 65 are integral to mounting the fiberglass body and once that is permanently installed it can be a pain in the rear end to change light bulbs and check the wiring.  Given I am doing the wiring myself I will probably need to access these lights at some (many) points.  I made my panels over sized.  I can stick my arm all the way in there without having to slice my hands to ribbons.  The photo above shows the access panel from an odd angle so the cover plate for it looks much larger than the hole.  It is one inch larger in all dimensions to provide a lip to completely cover it up.  The black bar running along the left edge of the hole from this camera angle actually sits a couple inches away from the AL panel so it is not blocking access, veen though it looks like it does.  I originally planned to size the panel with this cross bar as the left edge of it but I needed the extra space to make sure I can actually stick my hand all the way in.  The angle approach worked well.  I've seen a couple of other efforts on line with much smaller panels.  Would probably work well if the lights were a straight shot from the side but they are back and angled down from where the trunk area is.  Long term I will put a gasket between the access panel and the inside panel (same for all access panels like battery and fuel filter) and then install some sticky backed sound deadening panels on the outside of the side panels.  The floor of the trunk area will be covered in dynamat or raam mat and then carpeted.  I plan to paint the interior walls with either a textured paint or just use undercoating from a spray can.  Same thing I used on the battery box.  To install the panels I used my new favorite item, rivnuts.  McMaster Carr sells lots of options and I am close to the distribution center they have in GA so for me everything ends up being next day from them regardless of how I pay for shipping.  Their website is a little lacking but I can always find what I want and their customer service is excellent.  Not a paid advertisement for them, just passing along a good source for weird stuff.

I think I do finally have all of the knowledge I need to wrap up the A/C work, when it is time.  A male trinary switch screws into the supplied dryer.  A female trinary switch is screwed into a separate fitting in the high pressure supply line.  It took me a lot of digging to figure out what most people already know who have chosen to do this.  The dryer in the Type 65 is mounted to the front of the engine compartment on the X-frame member in the frame.  I will run the A/C lines and evaporator drain lines through the front of the passenger footbox compartment.  Nothing else for the A/C will be installed until well after the engine goes in as I need to run A/C and heater supply and return lines around the lump.

As much as I keep pushing it off, installing the motor and trans for the first time is pretty much the next thing to do.  But first I will paint all of the cockpit AL panels and put them in again.  And then I will do the motor, maybe.

Wiring continues, thoughts on a/c work, rivnuts

Since my last update I continue work on the final form of the dash, and fitting all of the components behind it.  What you finally see is the easy part.  The wiring, ducting, and connections behind the face are the frustrating part. 

I chose to wire my dash so all items can be easily removed in the future instead of permanently connecting wiring harnesses before installing the dash.  Perhaps if I was more confident in my ability to produce the correct connection on the first try I wouldn't go with easily disconnected wire looms.  I broke down and finally bought a decent spring loaded wire stripper.  Should have done so years ago.  I varied the kind of connector I used based on what kind of thing I was wiring.  I used blade-style and male/female insert-style connectors so I can't incorrectly connect the wires.  This took a lot more time but in the end should help when I need to disconnect something after the dash is installed, if for instance I need to change a burned out light bulb.  As I also added a clock, and the Vintage Air slider knob panel has built in lights I needed to wire those into the Ron Frances loom (which come wired for five small and two large gauges).  The picture above shows the five main gauges for monitoring engine performance. 

I also installed the battery cut out switch and will install a separate 40 or 50 amp circuit breaker.  I avoided doing so for a while but it just makes sense now.  Too much work done to fry it all if I did something incorrectly.  The CB should help avoid that.

The Vintage Air A/C system instructions are confusing at best.  FFR provides two sets of VA specific instructions and their own FFR set which really just tells you how to install the brackets for the Sandon Compressor.  I had The Engine Factory do that so much of what FFR provided doesn't do me much good.  Even though the slider panel for controlling the system indicates it will control the A/C, it doesn't.  I must also install the old-fashioned A/C knob somewhere close to the evaporator.  The instructions also call for a vacuum line to the heater regulator valve but my valve is only cable operated.  The VA system discusses the importance of an optional trinary safety switch (to shut off the Sandon compressor if the system pressure is too high/low or turn on the engine fan if the system is too hot) but did not include any fitting into which the switch goes to sense temp and pressure [late addition, after much webpage viewing I figured out the switch is screwed into the dryer cannister - NOWHERE do any instructions mention this].  Plus the wiring diagrams show the switch having one black wire with a green stripe, one black wire, and two blue wires.  My switch has two black wires with no green stripe and two blue.  Kind of critical as one senses temp, the other pressure.  Most builders recommend using another manufacturer for A/C as the VA one is difficult.  I see why and wish I had done more research before charging ahead.  Final comment is the "complete kit" comes with insufficient amounts of ducting and vents for the kit.  I can't recommend the other kit most people use as I didn't buy it but I would strongly recommend checking out both before buying either.  Once I solve the wiring and plumbing problems I will post what I did.  I spent a lot of time scouring the internet looking for solutions. 

For now I moved on to rough fitting the trunk AL panels, and once again chickening out on doing final install for cockpit AL panels.  I did some more work on making the dash look pretty with the center console control panel removable front plate.  The Rivnuts work great and look good.  Picture here is work in progress - idea stolen from cbergquist1 flickr page.

One final planning piece is I decided to paint the inside (unseen) part of the dash panels appliance white.  Should help me see stuff behind the dash when the inevitable happens and I need to figure out why something isn't working.  I figure the white should provide a good background and additional visible light to see what I did wrong, or what part failed.

Dash layout - don't look behind the curtain

Lots of work lately on the dash layout.  Which really means working behind the dash.  I ordered a Vintage Air heat and a/c unit for my car as Florida weather and small hot car means grumpy driver.  To fit the air unit behind the dash lots of people end up modifying the firewall by cutting a hole in it for the back of the condenser unit to stick out into the engine bay, then they build a cover around it.  The instructions say to cut the bottom lip of the dash panel.  This worked probably okay on the previous model of the vintage air unit but they relocated the vacuum attachments for the dash vent and main vent activation valves so even with the bottom lip cut out the condenser still doesn't fit in the space between the dash and firewall.  So I cut off about one inch of the plastic case for the condenser.  I did this before calling vintage to ask their opinion and you can guess what they said, we don't recommend cutting it.  Too late.  So I bought a black plastic 6" paint scraper and used it as the raw material to block off the hole I cut and then used a two-part epoxy to put it on.  Worked like a charm.

As I started looking at dash layout options I realized each one of these car's dash layout is kind of like a fingerprint - no two are alike.  There isn't a single page in the instruction manual that says "you will need all of these switches and in this location."  As I think I've complained before the manual is pretty good but it assumes one is building from a donor car - which most people don't do anymore.  I kind of used a standard dash layout like the one in my daily driver truck (1985 Dodge Ram) so it makes sense to me.  I located commonly used switches like lights and signals close to my steering wheel so I can use them without taking my hands too far from the wheel.  I also needed to locate the the vintage control panel and that is the blue rectangle in the middle of the transmission tunnel center section.  I wanted it dead center but the defrost/vent diverter cable comes off the right side and needs about four inches of clear space to not bind the cable too much.  Doens't look as symmetric obviously but works for me.  I am also a time freak so I put a clock in the center as well.

When I originally mocked up the five main smaller gauges they were all flush to the dash, and from my driving position I couldn't see about 25% of the gauge face, so I installed angle mounts for them.  Except the instructions were useless so I spent a lot of time ovalling the gauge holes to get them where I wanted them - as originally cut they are a perfect fit for the 2 1/16" gauges.  Bisect a plane with a cylinder on an angle and you get an ellipse - thank you 9th grade geometry.  It took me quite a few hours last weekend but I am happy with the results.  As I angled them left and rotated them clockwise about 45 degrees I also had to modify the new metal brackets that hold them on the back of the dash.  The instructions with the angle mounts even came with handy templates to cut out and use.  They assumed the gauges have no electrical connection posts so using them as directed would result in an aluminum bar running directly across the + and - posts.  Called a short circuit - thank you 11th grade electronics class.  Also results in fires and damaged equipment.

Finally I stole heavily from cbergquists flickr pictures and installed a removable panel in the center section.  Once I rivnut it in place it will make a world of difference getting into that space and if I break down and install a stereo later on all I have to do is cut a new center panel instead of having to bend a whole new piece.

One bit if cleanup last weekend was to cut down the box the motor came in so it would actually fit under my body buck - which I designed to hold the body and still roll over the engine.  I put the engine on a left over dolly I made for the rear differential and just had to cut down and rebuild the box the motor came in, plus narrowing the pallet it was shipped on - otherwise known as taking a hand saw to it.

Lots more work to do behind the dash with wiring in each electrical/electronic item.  Probably take some leave and spend 2-3 days playing hooky just working on it.

Missed some weekends doing a trip to Disney and taking my daughter to visit colleges.  Time flies.  I do really enjoy solving the various problems that come up building this car.  I can see why lots of guys say the saddest day is the day they are all done.

351W Motor arrived from Engine Factory today

This thing is a piece of art.  The team at Engine Factory did a fantastic job putting it together.  I originally planned on just using the bracket supplied by FFR for the AC compressor but after talking to Chris at EF I am glad I went with their March billet pulley mount.  I compressed the picture above but it is awesome.  They ship all the boxes for the parts they use with the motor and put handy explanatory tags on everything to show where stuff goes.  I flattened all the boxes but cut off any part numbers or descriptions in case I damage something later on and need to replace it.

I went with a 351 Windsor motor with a carb instead of EFI.  EFI is a lot more expensive and complicated and given I don't plan on modifying this engine, or trying to squeeze out more HP (400 rated already in a 2500lb car) a carb is fine.  I also understand old-school carbs.  This does have electronic choke so it will still be very reliable to use.  They also install a custom air cleaner designed specifically to fit under the deck hood of the coupe.  From what I understand the 351W fits okay but not with a lot of room to spare so every little bit helps.  And as I said before I'm building my car, not someone else's interpretation of a Cobra Coupe so not having the Cobra stamped air intake doesn't bother me.  And this one looks really good anyway.

No seriously, just look at this thing.  It is bee-you-tee-full.  Some day I will actually hear it run.  I mean in the car.  EF also sends you a video of it running before they ship it.