The time has finally arrived to start building our Mk4 roadster! I figured we would keep a build thread to help catalog our progress. In addition, I have read so many build threads in preparation that I figured I could pay it forward by sharing my build.
Let me give a little background. My brother, Phil, and I had both been dreaming of building a FFR Roadster. A few years ago we were talking and my brother mentioned he really wanted to build one. I told him I had been looking at it as well. Interestingly, we had both came up with essentially the same build and options as the other, even the same engine. During that conversation we decided to build one together. We started saving our pennies and finally purchased the kit back in October. Here is the basic run down:
Mk4 Complete Kit with powder coated chassis
Blueprint 347 EFI with TKO-600
Power steering
3-link solid rear axle
Drop trunk
Rear cockpit cubby
Heater/defroster
Soft top
Front battery relocation kit
Passenger rollbar
Vintage GPS gauges
My brother lives about 5 hours away and we are building it at his house. That means the build will go in spurts. I also made him promise to not build anything when I'm not there... Luckily, I get big chunks of time off so we should move along nicely.
My brother built the body buck last week and attached it to the ceiling to give us more space.
My brother wasn't available until yesterday afternoon, so I spent the time building the chassis dolly. It is so much easier to move the vehicle than I expected. I ended up using a 4x6 instead of the common 4x4 as the main part of the frame of the dolly. This gave it more height but still low enough the floor jack can still lift the vehicle.
Sorry I didn't get a good picture of the dolly, but it is the same basic design as most of the dollies others have made.
Congratulations and welcome! Looking forward to following your thread. As you've probably seen from reading some of the build threads, there are great people on here willing to help answer any questions that come up along the way! Oh yeah, and we'll help you spend your money on mods!
Mark IV Complete kit delivered 7/7/20
Blueprint 427 ordered 11/23/20
Once my brother was home we started inventory. I can tell I'm excited to start the build because I actually enjoyed inventory!
In all honesty, though, the inventory was quite helpful. We took our time and figured out quite a bit. We even opened up the build manual to help us identify parts. Just doing inventory made the build ahead seem less intimidating.
We only found 3 things missing that weren't on the POL. We were missing 1 nut, 1 rubber hood bumper, and the rear shock mounting hardware. Not too shabby considering the thousands of parts that were included.
Once we finished inventory we took the body off and hoisted it up to its resting place. I can say that having extra hands would be nice, but we got it off with just the two of us.
Awesome that you two are doing it together! I also ordered in October but my kit is still sitting at FFR waiting for shipment unfortunately. Love all the space you have in your garage to work, I'm jealous!
Congratulations. Let us know how that "don't build anything without me" goes. You better take his tools with you when you leave. Building is addictive.
-Steve
Awesome that you two are doing it together! I also ordered in October but my kit is still sitting at FFR waiting for shipment unfortunately. Love all the space you have in your garage to work, I'm jealous!
That is one reason why we decided to build it at my brother's house, he has a better garage.
What you don't see is the two car bay behind me when I took the pictures that we can use as well!
We marked all the aluminum panels, took about a thousand pictures of the panels, then removed them. For anybody who hasn't started their build, I highly recommend getting an attachment to use a 1/4" socket on a drill. That saved us a ton of time.
One we removed them we installed the F panels. I played with the clecos, which is the first time I have used them. They are pretty neat and I can't imagine doing the panels without them.
ALL of the rivets are on the POL, but I had a few of the right size. We decided to silicone and rivet them in place. Other panels will be held on by clecos until we absolutely have to install them.
My nephew (15 years old) was helping and he drilled and riveted the entire driver's panel. He did a great job!
Sadly the front lower control arms, spindles, and shocks are on the POL. Because of this we just started with the rear end instead.
We are doing the 3-link solid axle. We installed the brakes (only had to remove the mounting brackets 3 times to fix something). We put the axle on our work bench to install the calipers. That was nice.
Don't forget to check if you need the spacer between the two mounting brackets. I torqued the bolts down and THEN realized I needed the spacer. Oooops...
Our lug nuts are also on the POL. We just went to the auto parts store and bought a few 1/2 - 20 lug nuts so we could keep the rotor in place. We did this to check if we needed the spacers to position the calipers correctly.
The brakes took longer than planned because of the dang anti rattle clips (and having to take apart the mounting hardware more than once...). Honestly, though, it went fairly smooth and the brakes are now attached to the rear end!
Now that the brakes calipers were installed we began installing the rear end. It is amazing how many times I read the build manual in preparation and thought it made sense, but when I am actually building I get confused easily.
First off, the manual never said to install the lower control arms (I probably just missed it). I recommend attaching them to the axle before lifting the axle in place.
I'm also glad I read other build threads where they forgot to remove the panhard mount. I would have made the same mistake, so thank you!
I was confused at where the manual says to drill the 2x3" diagonal tube for the front arm of the mount. I was confused because the hole on the mount lines up to the cap of the 4" round tube, not the diagonal 2x3" tube. I finally realized that the diagonal tube goes through the 4" round tube and that the 2x3 tube is just under the end cap. In other words, drilling through the round end cap also goes trough the 2x3" tube. Clear as mud...
After a lot of pushing, pulling, jacking, etc, we were finally able to get the lower control arms mounted. On the driver side I had to use a bottle jack under the control arm to lift it in place. My brother had to use a dead blow hammer to get the control arm into the mount. Then I had to push the axle with my foot and pull on the chassis to get the holes lined up. We finally got them in.
The upper control arm was a lot easier. I even remembered anti size on the rod ends. Once again, a big thanks to the previous build threads to teach me that!
We weren't able to finish the rear end installation because it was almost midnight. We will do that tomorrow. We still have to do the coil overs and then attach the panhard bar, but we will get to that tomorrow.
What a great day. I feel like we got a ton of stuff done and are moving along nicely.
Remember how I said I didn't find the part to mount the lower control arms to the axle? Yup, I found it today. And I forgot to mount the shock mount. I have fixed that mishap and started the coil overs.
I don't have the mounting hardware so I just have them temporarily held in place until I get all the spacers.
I also went to install the panhard bar. One of the rod ends that I was given was the wrong size (the 5/8 bolt won't fit through the hole). The other end fits and the two on the upper control arm are also the 5/8 size. Am I missing something or do I have the wrong rod end?
Also, when installing the lower shock mount to the axle, I had two nuts left and only two bolts, and the thread was the wrong size on the nuts... I guess it is time I head to the hardware store.
You guys are making some great progress! Glad I'm not the only one who had some challenges geting the rear axel and control arms in place. Seemed like evey other build I looked at they talked about it just going right in!
One thing I didn't see you mention though on the rear axle.....did you guys add fluid to the differential before mounting it? Not the end of the world if you didn't but it is easier with it out of the car and you can turn the differential facing upwards.
A little tip for when you install your front calipers and the anti rattle clips.....use zip ties to hold the clips in place while you install the pads. Makes it WAY easier.... Thx to builder YamaBro for that one.
Mark IV Complete kit delivered 7/7/20
Blueprint 427 ordered 11/23/20
You guys are making some great progress! Glad I'm not the only one who had some challenges geting the rear axel and control arms in place. Seemed like evey other build I looked at they talked about it just going right in!
One thing I didn't see you mention though on the rear axle.....did you guys add fluid to the differential before mounting it? Not the end of the world if you didn't but it is easier with it out of the car and you can turn the differential facing upwards.
A little tip for when you install your front calipers and the anti rattle clips.....use zip ties to hold the clips in place while you install the pads. Makes it WAY easier.... Thx to builder YamaBro for that one.
Thank you for the clip tip! Those are an absolute beast. I have read some people don't use them. I had issues with the clips causing the pads to not slide and they didn't want to sit vertically in the calipers... I'll play with he clip more.
This will be a multi post update. I already updated my morning issues with the panhard bar rod end size (they are supposed to fit a 5/8" bolt, right?) and the issue with forgetting to install the shock mount on the axle... I installed the mount, finished putting the coil over assembly together, and hung the shocks. Sadly, the shock mounting hardware is on our POL, so I just got a 1/2" bolt and temporarily hung the shocks while waiting for the correct bolt and spacer.
I followed the advice on Papa's build thread and installed the coil over with the spring side up. This gave a lot more clearance at the shock bracket on the axle. Thank you!
All I have left on the rear axle install is the shock mounting hardware and panhard bar. I think I'm also going to try to play with the anti rattle clips in the brakes to see if I can get them to work better.
Next we moved onto the front end. We couldn't do much since the spindles and lower arms are on the POL.
We did install the upper ball joints into the upper arms. We had NO issues with fitment. I have read multiple posts on the issues people have had, but ours went on smoothly. I did forget the red thread locker, so I had to unscrew them and put the thread locker on, but that was easy.
I haven't tightened the bolts because I am researching if I should trim the rear sleeves and rods to get more caster. Do I trim both rear sleeves and rods?
We also installed the front panel of the driver's footbox. I may have drilled a hole where the pedal box mount is installed, so there may or may not be a hole that isn't riveted. Oh well. You live and to learn...
Can I say how much I love the clecos? They are amazing.
I made a mistake drilling the holes for the brake and clutch switches. The issue was that my hole wasn't perpendicular to the surface. That meant when I moved the mount to the other side it didn't fit. We ended up trimming one mount slightly with a hack saw (that was some tough metal). The other side I oversized the hole a little. We got them installed correctly and now the pedal can activate the switches.
We also ran into the issue where we didn't have (or couldn't find) the bolts to install the pedal mounting bracket to the front of the footbox. If said it required 4 socket bolts. The manual said 3 were in the FFR hardware and the 4th came with the pedal box. Our pedal box didn't come with any and we also couldn't find any with the hardware from FFR. I have no idea why we couldn't find them. Also, the inventory list didn't have them listed anywhere. Bizarre.
We DID find 2 of the exact same bolts that are used to mount the banana bracket to the rear axle. Since our bracket was welded on, we didn't use those bolts. We also couldn't find the bolts that go though the 3/4" square tube for the rear bracket. Oh well. We just went to the hardware store and picked them up.
Sadly, our master cylinders are on the POL so we couldn't install those... seems like we can only do bits and pieces because of that!
We also started on the accelerator pedal. What an absolute pain. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but I couldn't get the arms separated for the life of me. I ended up prying the arms apart and it took me about 30 minutes to get them apart. I finally did and was able open up the arms. By this time it was getting late and we had spent roughly 10+ hours on it today so we called it a night.
Although we ran into a bunch of roadblocks today, I still feel it was a successful day. I also have tomorrow off so we will hopefully get more done.
Not quite as much was done today, but it was still a good day.
I started off by filling the differential. Even though we waited until after the axle was installed, it was still simple to fill. WAY easier than on my Jeep because I actually have room to get to the fill hole.
I also installed the breather tube. I haven't decided where to mount the end, so for now it is just zip tied to a 3/4" tube.
My nephew and I worked on getting the anti rattle clips installed on the rear brakes. Let me just say these are the absolute worst brakes in existence on installing the pads and anti rattle clips. It only took me 2 hours to get the pads into the calipers. I even used the zip tie trick, which helped.
It is good I decided to try to get the clips in. I also figured out why the clips were causing so much drag on the rear axle. The small stud on the back of the pads are supposed to sit in a groove on the piston. The piston on one side was slightly rotated. When the anti rattle clips were installed the small rod wouldn't fit into the groove. I was able to rotate the piston and now the brake pad fits flush.
Here is a picture of the piston. The grooves are supposed to be perfectly vertical.
The brakes took me about 2.5 hours to figure that out. That was half of the time I had available today.
I also was able to buy a few nuts to finish mounting the lower rear shock mounts. That is another thing to cross off my list.
We then moved on to the accelerator pedal. I was unable to find the mounting hardware for the pedal. I also couldn't find the accelerator cable. According to the manual, all of the missing screws on the pedal box and the accelerator are part of the "pedal hardware." I suspect that I either can't find the bag or it is missing. The odd part is that I can't find the hardware needed on my inventory list or POL. I also can't see the accelerator cable on the inventory either. I wonder if I am just assuming over it too fast and missing which box it is in. I will go over the inventory list again tonight to see if I can figure it out.
Since I couldn't find the hardware for the accelerator pedal or the cable and I don't have the master cylinders for the brakes and clutch, I moved on to the passenger foot box. I drilled and riveted the inside wall and front wall before I had to call it quits for the night.
I do have a question about whether or not I should fully rivet the passenger footbox together. I was thinking I shoud install the sound/heat insulation before I rivet the outer box together. What do you think?
You should take your time to get a detailed inventory. I counted the nuts/bolts as well to make sure everything was there. Once you start going through the boxes, things will get jumbled and finding parts becomes much more difficult. If consolidating parts, make notes to remember where you placed things.
I made cardboard templates of the footbox panels before installing them. this allowed me to cut sound deadener to size so I wouldn't have to crawl inside the footboxes to take measurements. You can likely finish the PS footbox if you want. I installed my cockpit floors before doing my brake and fuel lines. you'll need to crawl under the chassis to attach them anyway and I didn't think leaving the cockpit floor panels off would have helped that much.
Next we moved onto the front end. We couldn't do much since the spindles and lower arms are on the POL.
We did install the upper ball joints into the upper arms. We had NO issues with fitment. I have read multiple posts on the issues people have had, but ours went on smoothly. I did forget the red thread locker, so I had to unscrew them and put the thread locker on, but that was easy.
I haven't tightened the bolts because I am researching if I should trim the rear sleeves and rods to get more caster. Do I trim both rear sleeves and rods?
for power steering, you'll want to trim the rear UCA sleeve a bit to get more caster. you need to trim the threaded rod the same amt as well so they don't bottom out when threaded into the sleeve.
paint a stripe on the upper ball joint where it meets the control arm to be able to quickly visualize if the BJ is unthreading over time. some people put a tack weld on it to keep it from backing out.
You should take your time to get a detailed inventory. I counted the nuts/bolts as well to make sure everything was there. Once you start going through the boxes, things will get jumbled and finding parts becomes much more difficult. If consolidating parts, make notes to remember where you placed things.
I made cardboard templates of the footbox panels before installing them. this allowed me to cut sound deadener to size so I wouldn't have to crawl inside the footboxes to take measurements. You can likely finish the PS footbox if you want. I installed my cockpit floors before doing my brake and fuel lines. you'll need to crawl under the chassis to attach them anyway and I didn't think leaving the cockpit floor panels off would have helped that much.
We spent quite a few hours on the inventory and opened everything and went through everything. We did one bag at a time to try to keep things together. I too counted the nuts and bolts and even checked sizes with my bolt identifier. When we couldn't identify a part we went to the build manual to figure out what the part was. We put things back into the bags they came in and then back into the same boxes. We didn't consolidate any boxes. The issue we had was just trying to figure out which box the parts were stored. I think I just passed over them each time I went through the 50 pages of inventory. My mind tends to wander after a few pages. I'm now trying to go through the inventory list more slowly to avoid that issue. I did scan the inventory pages into the computer and I'm going to see if I can use a program to recognize the text to make it searchable. That should help.
Now that I'm slowly figuring out how to read my inventory better, there are only 2 nuts I can't figure out where they are. They are in my inventory list and we verified they were there. I probably just put them in the wrong bag one night when cleaning up and will find them later! I feel much better with my inventory.
Thank you for the cardboard templates tips. I will definitely do that! We finished the passenger foot box today but I haven't riveted the outer wall. We also drilled the passenger floor and will likely rivet that in tomorrow. Thank you for letting me know that it didn't seem to change anything for running fuel and brake lines.
for power steering, you'll want to trim the rear UCA sleeve a bit to get more caster. you need to trim the threaded rod the same amt as well so they don't bottom out when threaded into the sleeve.
paint a stripe on the upper ball joint where it meets the control arm to be able to quickly visualize if the BJ is unthreading over time. some people put a tack weld on it to keep it from backing out.
Thank you! I have read quite a few of the UCA sleeve trimming and it is good to get confirmation before I actually trim. I haven't tightened anything on the UCA because I was planning on timing them soon.
I will paint a stripe on them and keep an eye on it.
What's up hineas! You guy are coming along quite nicely IMO. FYI, my roadster was delivered in December and my POL included the front LCA and spindle nuts including the steering rack (which I am still waiting on the the LCAs and steering rack). You guys are building just like me. I started with rear end and then went with installing the pedal box. Then I ran the brake hard lines and fuel hard lines etc.................. So my point is, I have been building everything south of the firewall due to the crucial POL I am missing. It can be done and you can keep on trucking for quite some time so don't get discouraged. I have ran my electrical, E brake, fuel tank and lines, installed my heat and sound dampening material in the foot boxes and dash install. Keep on keeping on!
FFR MK4 Roadster (9945) complete kit, delivered 12/4/2020, First start and go kart 5/7/2021. Legal 8/14/2021, Paint finished 7/18/2022 (Viking Blue). 347BPE CI, TKO600, Moser 8.8 3link 3.55, Halibrand 17x9 17x10.5, power steering. Carbon Fiber Dash. Carbon Fiber trans tunnel, adjustable Kirkey Lowback Vintage seats, Vintage gauges, RT drop trunk mod, FFmetal drop battery mod and trans tunnel, Forte front sway bar. Forte mechanical throttle linkage, RT gas pedal. www.covespringsfarm.com
Today was a good day. I drilled a ton of panels and riveted most of the passenger foot box. I haven't riveted the outer wall so I can get in to install the insulation. Once that is installed we will rivet the outer panel in place.
We also drilled the passenger floor but haven't riveted it in.
Since I figured out to actually read the inventory list and found the missing hardware and accelerator cable, we moved on to installing the accelerator pedal. The pedal was a beast to take the arm off to open it up. We found that it was easiest to just put one arm in a vice then use a dead blow hammer and a rod to push the rod out of the arm. We played with various positions of the arms, reversing which side each arm is on, and finally settled on a position that seems like it will work. We also installed the throttle cable. While doing all of this we kept putting the inner footbox wall in place to see if there would be any interference. Right now it looks good, but it may need some adjustments when we adjust the other pedals.
We also started on steering, but we can't do much with it because we don't have the power steering rack. We did get the upper shaft figured out and the set holes drilled for the u-joint. We also loosely mounted the bearings and raised the cockpit bearing so it doesn't rub on the frame.
Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the pedals and the steering.
There is still some more that we can do before we hit some big road blocks because of the parts on our POL. I have to head home in 2 days and it will probably be a month before I get back up here. But we have gotten a ton done this week and I have enjoyed the build so far!!!
What's up hineas! You guy are coming along quite nicely IMO. FYI, my roadster was delivered in December and my POL included the front LCA and spindle nuts including the steering rack (which I am still waiting on the the LCAs and steering rack). You guys are building just like me. I started with rear end and then went with installing the pedal box. Then I ran the brake hard lines and fuel hard lines etc.................. So my point is, I have been building everything south of the firewall due to the crucial POL I am missing. It can be done and you can keep on trucking for quite some time so don't get discouraged. I have ran my electrical, E brake, fuel tank and lines, installed my heat and sound dampening material in the foot boxes and dash install. Keep on keeping on!
You aren't kidding. We are building ours in almost exactly the same order!!!
Our plan tomorrow is to finish the cockpit aluminum and then start the gas tank. Next on the plan is fuel and brake lines, then electrical, then do the drop trunk. We will keep trying to come up with things to do!
I wonder if we can install the drive train without the power steering rack?
I spoke with Dave at FFR and he told me yes you can install the drivetrain sans steering rack.
FFR MK4 Roadster (9945) complete kit, delivered 12/4/2020, First start and go kart 5/7/2021. Legal 8/14/2021, Paint finished 7/18/2022 (Viking Blue). 347BPE CI, TKO600, Moser 8.8 3link 3.55, Halibrand 17x9 17x10.5, power steering. Carbon Fiber Dash. Carbon Fiber trans tunnel, adjustable Kirkey Lowback Vintage seats, Vintage gauges, RT drop trunk mod, FFmetal drop battery mod and trans tunnel, Forte front sway bar. Forte mechanical throttle linkage, RT gas pedal. www.covespringsfarm.com
Thanks!!! That thing has been stressful LOL! I know I have one shot to get the holes right and everything lined up so I have been very slow at getting it completely buttoned up so I don't make any silly mistakes
FFR MK4 Roadster (9945) complete kit, delivered 12/4/2020, First start and go kart 5/7/2021. Legal 8/14/2021, Paint finished 7/18/2022 (Viking Blue). 347BPE CI, TKO600, Moser 8.8 3link 3.55, Halibrand 17x9 17x10.5, power steering. Carbon Fiber Dash. Carbon Fiber trans tunnel, adjustable Kirkey Lowback Vintage seats, Vintage gauges, RT drop trunk mod, FFmetal drop battery mod and trans tunnel, Forte front sway bar. Forte mechanical throttle linkage, RT gas pedal. www.covespringsfarm.com
Yesterday was another great day. It was my last day to work on the car for the next month, but we were able to put in a full 12 hours on it.
We started by finishing off the cockpit aluminum. That was a lot of riveting for a manual riveter, but we split it up between the three of us. I think it turned out great!
We then installed the gas tank. Like others have mentioned, we will need a longer bolt for the front side of the passenger strap. We currently have a random bolt we found in my brother's tool box, but it is a 1/4" bolt and we are going to get a 3/8" bolt. The install wasn't too hard and it went right in. We also modified the fuel pickup for EFI and installed a different return line.
For those of you who have used the BluePrint EFI, did you put a hose clamp on the return line drop tube?
We spent some time figuring out where to mount the fuel pump and run fuel lines, but we didn't install those because we need to get some hardware for how we are going to mount it.
We then moved onto the rear brakes lines. We installed the flexible lines and ran the hard line between the rear brakes. I have never used a line bender, but it was much easier than I expected.
Then we decided it would be fun to set the seats in the cockpit and just sit. We cleaned out all the metal shavings from drilling and each took turns sitting in the seats.
While sitting there we moved the pedal plates around to fit our feet better. We are going to have to slightly bend the accelerator arm so it lines up a little better. My feet are small enough that most shoes will work, but I'm going to still buy some driving shoes for just a little more space.
We then decided to mount a door. I think we are going to do the modification to widen the top of the door. There is enough room for us to fit, but it would sure be nice to have an extra inch or so of shoulder room. The real question is if this will interfere with the soft top. I think we will install the soft top before paint then decide if we should trim the doors.
It was a great way to end the first week. We got a TON done this week and I can't wait until I come back. There isn't much left for us to do before we install the engine.
If only our front suspension and master cylinders would get here soon...
Thanks: 
Likes: 
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by BeePea
