15th Anniversary MKIV build thread - TROJAN

[David Hodgkins]

Just a quick update today.

Checked in on the carpet install yesterday. Should be able to pick it up today!

[David Hodgkins]

I did indeed pick up the roadster yesterday. The carpet came out great!



After I got it back to the shop and on the lift I used the integrated scissor lift to drop the tank so I could mount the rear bumper. I gotta say, everyone who builds one of these cars should have a lift! They make jobs like dropping the fuel tank a snap to do. I've lowered the tank several times before with a floor jack and it can get pretty sketchy but not so with a lift.



Here's the bumper installed:





I also mounted the seat brackets and put the floor mats in:





After I mount the seats today I'll start prepping the dash for install. I don't have a glove box made yet so I will just mount the door for now and take it back apart next week to finish that project.

Oh yeah, I also have this to install...

[David Hodgkins]

Just wanted to add this:



It's getting close! Will it be ready for Saturday???

We are loading it on a trailer tonight so that we can take it to th CHP tomorrow to have the frame # assigned as the VIN. Wish us luck!

[wallace18]

Car looks fantastic David! Do you do anything special with the seats due to your height?

[Jeff Kleiner]

The carpet looks REALLY nice! Since you have to do both anyway you'll find it much easier to get to the driver's side windshield bolts if you install it before the dash (if you wanna' make the passenger side easy remove the tire and splash panel). Looking forward to seeing it all together

Jeff

[David Hodgkins]

Car looks fantastic David! Do you do anything special with the seats due to your height?

No not really. They are just mounted really low in the bracket and pushed back as they'll go. The Kirkey racing seats give ~2" additional leg room. Add in the adjustable Wilwoods and I have ~4" additional leg room...

The carpet looks REALLY nice! Since you have to do both anyway you'll find it much easier to get to the driver's side windshield bolts if you install it before the dash (if you wanna' make the passenger side easy remove the tire and splash panel). Looking forward to seeing it all together

Jeff

Good tips Jeff, thanks!

My bro Phil is taking the roadster to the CHP this AM to get the VIN assigned and this afternoon is the BIG push to mount the dash and windshield before the show tomorrow. Looks like I won't get to do the fan shroud in time but having this show come up really forced us to get a lot of work done this week...

[David Hodgkins]

CHP VIN assignment went off without a hitch! And in more good news, Eric Hansen was at Jeff Miller's this AM and brought this by my work on the way home:



Today is the last day to prep for the Serpents in the Garden Show TOMORROW. I have to JB Weld hinges and a closure clasp on my dash, attach the louvers, assemble and mount the windshield and re-install the dash TONIGHT ACK!

[KDubU]

Hat is great news David! Really loving that paint now with everything together.

[David Hodgkins]

The Serpents in the Garden show was a great success! You can read about it here.

I took Sunday and yesterday off to recharge my batteries and will get back to work today. The louvers never made it on the build (sorry Jeff!) and the only thing hooked up to the dash was the ignition so that's coming back out today.

Just because, here's a few shots of the roadster at Saturday's event:

[QSL]

Looks AWESOME in person!

[David Hodgkins]

Looks AWESOME in person!

Coming from you sir (MR Best-In-Show himself) that's quite the compliment!

[David Hodgkins]

I just HAVE to add this for posterity. We made the news!!

[David Hodgkins]

Well the excitement of last weekend carried me into this weeks' tasks. I took out the dash to work on the glovebox door but not before I measured the gap underneath it so I could make an under-dash panel. Then I assembled the windwings and sunvisors. The windwings went right on but the sunvisor screws didn't want to thread into the windshield. I did some research and spoke with some fellow builders and decided rather than attempting to remove the chrome plating and shortening the screws I'd instead try getting some metric (M3) screws. I went to the local industrial hardware store and scored these:


These are shorter than the Supplied FFR screws and I was able to thread them right into the windshield frame. The sunvisors then were quickly installed:






I realize the visors are not mounted the way some others mount them but I need the additional height to cut the wind. They are set up the same way on my ride.

I then moved on to the under-dash panel. First I cut the panel to rough size with the bandsaw:


Then I bent it on a brake and mounted the piano hinge to it. I then mocked it up in the cockpit, matching the 2" center-to-center of the firewall mounting holes. I cut around the dash support:




I'm not sure how I'm going to mount the lip to the dash. On my 1st build I just pulled the dash out and let the shelf lip rest on top of the lip on the bottom of the dash...

Anyway, I then pulled the panel and will have it PC'd.

continued...

[David Hodgkins]

continued...

I've also started working on the glove box door. I used some hinges I got from McMaster-Carr and attached them to the door and dash using JBweld. Then I started working on the "catch" which is nothing more than a stereo door magnetic catch. Push to open, push to close. I took a piect of the piano hinge that I had cut off around the dash support and started filing it down to a reasonable size to use and the ferrous piece of metal that I will attach to the aluminum glove door. Here's a few shots to show you the progress, and where I'm at now. It's just a little magnet that will slide into a mounting hole and be held in place with a rubber grommet:



Here's a close-up:


This is the glove door project showing the hinges and the piece of metal I'm going to use to make the catch:


I'm not sure if I made it clear what I'm doing with the glovebox but I'll post pics after I get a little further along and hopefully it will answer any questions you have of how it will work...

[David Hodgkins]

Something showed up at my door on Friday afternoon that I've been waiting months for:





It's my personal opinion of course, but I think the horns that come with the kit are just... bland. I knew the sound I wanted in my head during my first build and after some research decided on Triple Air Horns from Hella. I've been very happy with the result so for this build going with them again was a no-brainer. But for some reason they were not available and I had to wait 3 months until Hella produced another batch. I decided to put finishing the dash on hold so that I could install the horn and louvers, thereby finishing the engine compartment (for now)

The compressor and horns need to be mounted with custom brackets so I took some aluminum stock I had and whipped these out:


They are... functional. I hammered the part that gets riveted to the frame to match the round x-tube and test fitted it with the horns to find a spot that didn't hit the steering rack but as close to the center as practical so the hose runs would be as short as possible. I was somewhat limited on where I could mount the compressor based on the Ron Francis harness but that's OK because I wanted it high on the driver's side tube to keep it out of the air being pulled through the rad. I didn't want to waste time with powdercoating so I just polished them up on a polishing wheel with some green bar polish shown in the pic. pretty soon both pieces had a nice shine to them and I sealed them with sharkhide. Here's the horn bracket mounted:


With the horns mounted the bracket is somewhat hidden, which is fine by me. Here's the whole horn, with the compressor on the left, with the air tubes feeding the horns on the right. I replaced the end fittings from the Ron Francis harness and they feed into the rear of the compressor. Two wires are then piggybacked off those connections and crossed over to the electrical connections near the air holes. There's four air holes in the compressor so the instructions "tell you" (no English instructions so it's a visual learning experience) to bring two of them together with a Y connector included in the kit and drive the middle horn with that so that's what I did:


I made a short video that demonstrates the horn for my brother. Here it is. Yes, the horns are LOUD:

[David Hodgkins]

After the horn was installed I moved on to the louvers. Not a lot of technical discussion needed here. Just JB welded the mounting tabs onto the louvers and then used industrial strength velcro to attach to the body. The results are really nice though! I like body-colored louvers. I just think they look "tougher"...







It's almost ready! (from this angle)

[David Hodgkins]

It's been a long 8 days since my last post. I have been pushing to make the open track COCOA event at Willow Springs.

I'm not going to make it.

The plan was to wire the dash, install the glove box door (minus a finished glove box interior), add guards to the front speakers, finish wiring the lights, get a TOP so I can drive it and get it aligned.

First the lights. I wired the front headlight and parking lights. The headlights didn't come on when I threw the switch but I thought (correctly) that the issue would resolve itself when I wired up the switches in the cockpit. The tail lights needed to be permanently mounted so I used 6-32 x 1" button head screws for that task but had a catastrophe when I dropped one of the lenses, shattering it. I called FFR for a replacement and don't you know, it's on backorder from the manufacturer! UGH. I put out a feeler on the forums and Tom Wallace (wallace18) came through! The lights are on their way from Florida. He even sent them 2-day air. Thank you so much Tom! I want you to know I paid it forward with a couple of switches I sent to Mike Van Meter (MVM).

That issue seems to be on a track to resolution but until my brother shows up with the TOP I can't get the car aligned (I'm a little tired of U-Haul rentals at $60/day). Then the kicker. I added the door to the dash by bending up some AL stock for the press-to-release-press-to-close latch. I have the same setup on my dash. As shown above before I interrupted myself with the horn install, I roughed up the area under the latch and hinges and used a liberal amount of JB-Weld to affix them to the dash and door.

Here are some shots of the latch setup:







I then JB-Welded the latch. I made up for the offset of the latch by cutting 5 pieces of angle iron to mount to the underside of the dash hoop with a corresponding offset. I would then mount the dash to the tabs using more button-head screws:



I tested the door several times before the install and it worked great:

Closed:


Open:



You can see the dash mount tabs in the shot below...
So I went through and added the speaker guards, no problem. And then I organized all the dash wiring into a few looms and tested the switches:


continued...

[David Hodgkins]

continued...

Here are the wires organized a bit better:



Just as I had thought, as soon as the high beam/low beam switch was wired up the headlights started working.

I then started connecting the horn, mounting the switches and the gauges. I paused to get a pic...



And then I noticed the JB-Weld had given way on the glove box door! I pulled it out and could peel off the rest of the JB-Weld on the hinges:



...And now I have this big friggin' hole in the dash! NICE!



I was an hour away from closing up the dash and now it all has to come back out.

Which leads to my current depression and lost will to get it ready for Willow Springs. I guess I'll just drill out the hinges and latch and use buttonhead screws to finish it up. But all of a sudden I'm completely unmotivated...

[Jeff Kleiner]

Don't make me come out there to kick some motivation into your a$$ ---not only is it a long distance across the country it's a looooong stretch for my foot to meet yer a$$

I'll say it again; the car looks great!

Jeff

[David Hodgkins]

Thanks Jeff. I just gotta step back for a moment and rethink things.

I should do the glove box interior walls now, instead of later. I took yesterday off from the build and will pull the dash apart today to start on that and re-do the glove box door. I'm wondering if I didn't rough up the metal good enough for the JB-Weld? Anyway I think just putting the stainless button head screws in to mount the hinges is the route I'm going to take, I guess. Maybe.



PS to atone for my sin of not including any pics in this post here's the very best, next best thing I could think of. Enjoy!

[David Hodgkins]

So after a few days off I went back to work on the build. I've taken the dash back out and am working on fabricating glove box interior walls. The under-dash panel will act as the floor and will be carpeted. I'm thinking of doing something to the back - and possibly side - wall(s). Maybe mounting the build plaque on the back wall? I'll give it some thought over the next few days but for now I'm creating the templates and cutting metal.

Here's the dash glove box door. I'm starting over on the hinges. I'm will use my grinder to scuff up the metal this time to give the JB-Weld something better to hold on to. I'd forgotten that I did the same thing on my 1st build after it failed too. So for now I'm leaving the button head screws out of the equation:


And here's the glove box back wall template:


After the template was measured and fit well, I fabricated the rear wall. The top will have bulb seal and the two sides as well as the bottom are tabbed. I'll bend the tabs after I figure out how I want to decorate it.:


The rear lenses from Tom Wallace (wallace18) came in and they are perfect. Thanks again Tom! I'm a dork and forgot to get a pic but the (external) rear of the car is now done!

On the registration front, my bro hit the DMV yesterday to get a TOP but they would only grant a single-day "delivery pass" so I can drive it to brake and light inspection. AFTER THAT (drats) We can go back to the DMV for a TOP. This is a change in the DMV procedure from my 1st build. I can see the point in making sure the B&L is done before they allow the TOP but it sure is frustrating to keep going back to the DMV and their multi-hour wait times!

[68GT500MAN]

Dave, I know the pain of the DMV. On a brighter side, the last two FFR's that I have helped get through (one coupe and a roadster) did NOT require Brake and Light inspections. The California DMV seams to be run where each office can make their own exceptions.

The glove box looks great.
Doug

[David Hodgkins]

Doug that's crazy isn't it? The B&L seems like it's the one stop that SHOULD be mandatory! Wow...

I didn't get any time to work on the car on Saturday. My daughter came home from school and they MADE me go to the beach. ALL DAY! The water was 80 degrees, I swear! I've NEVER felt the water so warm in October. It was crazy! And at the end we were forced to BBQ and they even made me stay for the sunset. It was awful, but I suffered through it...:

[David Hodgkins]

On Sunday I got to get back to the build. Thanks to the inspiration gathered from a post by edwardb, I found a way to do the bends for the glove box. Just sandwich the metal between two 3/4" square tubes in a vice:



..and then just press the metal up with your thumbs:


To clear the bends in the corner you just move the piece to the edge of the tubes and clamp from the back:


I decided I was going to carpet the glovebox instead of engine turning or polishing 'cause you know, ya gotta keep the build under-stated; so I used a flat hammer to coax the metal into a tight bend. Pretty soon the rear glove box wall was done:


I then went on to create templates and cut out the side walls. Here's the outermost sidewall of the glove box:


The inner side wall was pretty tricky but I managed to create something that would work. Here are all 3 pieces that make up the rear and side walls of the glove box. Note that in this pic the inner side wall is turned around 180* from it's orientation:


continued...

[David Hodgkins]

Here are some shots of the walls in place. The under-dash panel makes up the floor and the dash is the front wall. I put in a bunch of clecos so you can see how the walls are mounted. I forgot to add a tab for the inner side wall so I'll just bend up a piece of 90 degree aluminum and use that to secure that side wall to the floor...:









The front of the side walls will have bulb seal between the walls and the back of the dash, as well as between the walls and the bodyt. The whole thing will be powder-coated and carpeted. I'll temporarily put the dash on today and get a pic to show you how it goes together. The box will be quite big...

[David Hodgkins]

Well I forgot to bring my camera (phone) to the shop yesterday so I don't have any pics today...

I test fitted the dash yesterday and the glove box (GB) looks great! Then I used a flapper wheel on the back of the dash as well as the hinges to rough up the metal and tried JB-Welding them onto the dash again. We'll see today if it works or not. I went by the upholstery shop yesterday and found out they don't have any more of the carpet I need so it'll be a few weeks before the GB gets carpet. I'll definitely post pics of the GB today so you can see it. I'll then be taking it back apart to take to the powdercoat guys.

I do hope you all are enjoying this build thread as much as I am. I know there are folks following the thread since it has close to 35,000 views now but please don't be shy and ask any questions you have about building these great cars!

[carlewms]

David,

Enjoying your thread ... I like the hinged under dash panel.

Please keep up the great posts.

Carl

[David Hodgkins]

David,

Enjoying your thread ... I like the hinged under dash panel.

Please keep up the great posts.

Carl

Thanks Carl! If you need measurements for any of the custom panels I'm doing just let me know. I especially think the GB walls might be something other people would want.

It's great to know folks out there are following along...

[David Hodgkins]

Last night I took the GB bits to the powdercoater and re-installed the GB door. The hinges seem to have much better adhesion now so hopefully I won't have to suffer through another failure.

The rest of the evening was spent measuring and making a template for the radiator shroud:



This is a lot harder than it looks to get right! And I'm wondering how it will attach. So far it look like it will br riveted to the mouth opening but then only have bulb seal for the rest? It's a WIP obviously...

[russelljones48]

David,

Amazing build... Couple of questions: is the quick change steering wheel shaft custom made or can I purchase 1? That shifter - same question.

Rustlesroadster

RJ

[David Hodgkins]

Russell,

Breeze Automotive makes the quick change kit:
http://www.breezeautomotive.com/details.php?prod_id=413

You have to trim the top of your steering shaft where it tapers and weld the spline column adapter on.

The mid shifter was supplied already mounted to the TKO 600 by Mike Forte. I assume you mean the shifter, and not the shift arm?

[David Hodgkins]

Yesterday I go a call from the powdercoaters. They got the GB metal done on a 1-day turn so I went and picked them up so I could start assembling the GB:









Before I could actually start assembling in the car there were a few outstanding - meaning late - details I had to address. The interface for the engine management software needed to be inside the GB and I needed to add a 12V power source and USB to the under-dash panel. The USB plug is 3/4" wide and the 12V lighter plug was 1-1/4" wide. How to cut those out? Well, I've found that using a wood bit works reasonably well for thin aluminum like these .040" panels so I went out to Ace Hardware and picked up the bits I needed. Then I worked on drilling hole for all 3 items.







continued...

[David Hodgkins]

The power source and USB plugs will use the heater and radio feeds from the harness but I needed a chassis ground so I drilled and tapped a 1/4" screw hole to accommodate a ground screw:



Now that I had everything set up I could start assembly and wire up the plugs...



So I riveted in the under dash panel...



And went to wire the plugs... Wait. Where's my wire stripper/clamp?? WHERE?!? I couldn't find that dang thing anywhere!! Dag Nabbit! After 15 minutes of futile attempts to find it, plus the fact that I was coming up on 10PM, I decided to call it a night. Sometimes you gotta just walk away. Especially late at night.

So the GB saga will continue for at least another day.

[russelljones48]

actually I meant the shift arm... I have a mid-shift TKO600 and that arm looks nice. Thanks for the Breeze pointer

[David Hodgkins]

actually I meant the shift arm... I have a mid-shift TKO600 and that arm looks nice. Thanks for the Breeze pointer

The shifter arm is a B&M piece I got from Mike Forte during my first build.

HTH,

[David Hodgkins]

I changed my mind about where to mount the ground screw for the USB and power ports and moved it to the dash hoop support tube where I could get direct frame contact. First I drilled the hole and then filed the powdercoating off...:



..and the tapped the hole:



After that I was able to finish wiring up the two ports. I made sure there was plenty of play so that the panel could raise and lower without the wires binding. Her it is in the up position:



...And here it is in the down position:



With that out of the way it was time to move on to the GB. I unhooked the wires for the engine interface and fed them through the back of the GB and assembled the rest of the box. Then I reassembled the plug for the interface and added some bulb seal to the front of the GB walls where they will meet the dash:





continued...

[David Hodgkins]

continued...

Here are a few shots of the completed Glove Box. The dash wiring is also complete (for now):







I can't wait to get the dash on and see this glove box finally done! I gotta make one up for my 1st build. Good thing I made templates!

[WIS89]

Looking good Dave!

I think it's great to be getting so much extra room out of the glove box area. A fair amount of work, but I bet the next one is a piece of cake.

Thanks for the step-by-step instructions. So, when will you have her done? Lots of pics and videos please!

Regards,

Steve

[David Hodgkins]

Looking good Dave!

I think it's great to be getting so much extra room out of the glove box area. A fair amount of work, but I bet the next one is a piece of cake.

Thanks for the step-by-step instructions. So, when will you have her done? Lots of pics and videos please!

Regards,

Steve

I've got templates of the walls so I'm going to add them to my MKIII and see if any changes need to be made. I didn't measure the MKIII under-dash panel to build the new one so it'll be interesting to see if they match.

I'm into my 2nd album of pics. And I gave myself 1000 pics capacity instead of the usual 500 so there are a ton there, including extra pics that didn't make it into the build thread.
15th Anniversary Build Album
15th Anniversary Build Album Finishing Touches

Right now the car is at a well known local alignment shop called Glenn's Alignment in Costa Mesa. Which reminds me, I need to get some shots of that place. They are enthusiasts, racers and must be collecters too. And, they've been around for a long time so the amount of cars they have there is amazing.

[David Hodgkins]

Well it's been close to two weeks since my last update.

No, it's not done yet.

But, it's getting pretty darn close. My MKIII isn't nearly this "complete". In terms of being ready for inspection the only thing left to do is wire up the dash switch. Aesthetically, I'm still working on the nose aluminum and the car will go back to upholstery one more time for glove box, cubby and trunk carpet. The cubby and trunk carpet will be remove-able.

I'm getting ahead of myself again, so let me fill in the details from the completion of the glove box walls. As you recall the first attempt at jb-welding the glove box door hinges failed miserably. This time I took a flapper wheel on my 4" grinder to the metal and gave the jb-weld a much rougher surface to cling to, and then attached the hinges. The result was a much stronger bond and so I decided to move forward with mounting the dash. The door will get a backing cover soon, probably a piece of MDX covered with leather.

Here's what the door looks like now:





The turn signals needed to be wired up, but the connector blades on the only on-off-on 3 pole lucas-style switch I had are the really small ones so I had to change out the connectors in the harness. Sorry for the blurry pic, here's the result:



In contrast, I was able to use the default connectors to attach a 3 pole on-on switch for the high beams. It didn't seem to be the strongest connection so I wrapped it in electrical tape. Unless the tape delams it is good to go. After those two switches were fixed I started hooking up the gauges. I don't have the speedo because I sent it back to speedhut to have GPS as well as high beam and turn indicator LEDs added to it. It will be back in about a week.

I mounted the dash to the tabs I added earlier and secured it using small stainless button head bolts. Here are a few shots of how the dash looks currently. You can see the wires for the hazard lights I still need to wire. The extra switch holes are for seat heaters and a wiper switch. I don't have those installed so I might just install some dummy switches to fill the holes for now. I know, lame, but it's tradition to leave SOMETHING to do after graduation! :





I also mounted the mirror. I know, a little out of order, but I decided to change the location from the top of the windscreen to the body after testing the mirror extension on my car. I like this position better, and I can see over the rear of the car just fine with it here:





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