Junbug's Colorado Mk IV Coyote/TKX Build Thread: First Go-Cart!

[Souleman]

Bryan, the E-brake mod looks great! I've read Lokar no longer makes the clevis set EdwardB used, so what parts did you end up using? I'm about to tackle the E-brake set up and don't like the idea of routing the cable under the 4". I'm actually shocked FFR still does it. If you don't mind, what pulleys/bolt and clevis set up did you use and where did you get them? I gather you probably used the pulleys from McMaster, #3434T24, but the rest is becoming more interesting to find. I'd appreciate any insight you can provide.

[maclonchas]

Bryan,

I am also getting an engine from Mike Forte, albeit a Boss 347 W/Edelbrock Pro Flo 4 EFI and am looking forward to the install. Can you tell me what engine leveler you used?

Thanks

Bill

[Mike.Bray]

Bryan,

I am also getting an engine from Mike Forte, albeit a Boss 347 W/Edelbrock Pro Flo 4 EFI and am looking forward to the install. Can you tell me what engine leveler you used?

Thanks

Bill

I can tell you I tried one from Northern Tool and it was terrible. This one worked really well, worth the money 100%. With it I was able to remove and reinstall the engine/trans by myself.

[danmas]

I lent Junbug mine.

This one

[Junbug]

Bryan, the E-brake mod looks great! I've read Lokar no longer makes the clevis set EdwardB used, so what parts did you end up using? I'm about to tackle the E-brake set up and don't like the idea of routing the cable under the 4". I'm actually shocked FFR still does it. If you don't mind, what pulleys/bolt and clevis set up did you use and where did you get them? I gather you probably used the pulleys from McMaster, #3434T24, but the rest is becoming more interesting to find. I'd appreciate any insight you can provide.

Thanks. I bought the clevis from Summit. The remainder of the parts I bought from my local Ace hardware... Stainless steel bolt and nuts. For the pulleys, yes, #3434T24 is the two I ordered. The bolt that runs through it I also got in stainless from Ace. I don't recall the sizing but I always try to bring in the parts and fit the nuts/bolts in store before I buy. You'll need to cut the ends of the e-brake cables off and thread them through the lokar clevis but it tightens up really well. No movement at all, so far.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/LOK-WCA8070

[Junbug]

Bryan,

I am also getting an engine from Mike Forte, albeit a Boss 347 W/Edelbrock Pro Flo 4 EFI and am looking forward to the install. Can you tell me what engine leveler you used?

Thanks

Bill

See Danmas post for the link. He was kind enough to share his lift and leveler with me. Worked great. Key is to ensure your engine is level when you start. It will get a bit crooked when tilting it with the type Danmas shared, but once you get it back to level, it dropped it perfectly into the engine mounts.

[Junbug]

Also, Big news! We had our first start today! Video link below. I had a brain fart yesterday when i didn't have power to my ignition. A single question on the forum and a couple of quick answer from some experts here and they straitened me out. I had "dieted" the ignition leg of my harness a bit too much. Once I looked at the wire diagram again I realized I had taken out the IGN->COL cable. Once I dug it out of my box-o-unused/cut cables, everything worked exactly as planned...
https://youtube.com/shorts/E-yKEphqw...6O24YqbQ28fJCC

[Junbug]

Its been a bit of time since I last updated but since the first start I've slowed down a bit, spent more time with family and went to two weddings, two weekends in a row. Oh, and had a leak in the bathroom that resulted in a full gut and replacement of the shower pan.
I've completed a handful of small tasks, installed a OEM Ford clutch cable, that is so much smoother than the FFR provided one. Along with the clutch cable I installed a firewall cable adjuster. All of that was pretty straight forward. I also installed my Gasn exhaust pipes and tightened up the ball flanges. They're essentially just hanging off the headers/ball flanges right now but I don't plan to do much go-carting until the spring, and aside from testing my brakes she will stay in the garage all winter (we are already having many nights below freezing).



I'm slowly building my list of sequential tasks to accomplish, and putting thought into how I want to finish my dash wiring, dash mounts, seat sliders, etc.

[Junbug]

So its been a few weeks, but we've been slowly making some progress... Bled the brakes two weeks ago and after a few boneheaded mistakes got everything snugged up and no leaks. We used a combination of using the Motive pressure bleeder then followed the wilwood bleeding video instructions. The brakes feel solid all around and I plan to bleed them once more before first go cart. We didn't fill the Motive pressure tank with fluid, we just filled the reservoirs (front brakes/rear brakes) and pressurized each system until very few to no bubbles were coming out the bleed lines. I would stop periodically to ensure that the reservoir didn't run out of fluid.
One tip, go around to all of your brake line joints and unions and verify each is tight. I thought I did this at least two times, but I happened to miss one line that was just finger tight (flexible line from hard line to caliper)... which caused me to believe it was leaking. So I drained the entire front system, then when I went to take the flexible line off, I realized it was barely finger tight! So I suggest checking all the joints/unions more than once! Anyway, I tightened it up, filled the reservoir and pressure bled that system again. No issues once it was tightened up!

[Junbug]

I also tested out a new rivnut tool i bought on my fuel system covers in the trunk area. Per some great guidance from someone on the site, they recommended I expand the hole covering the fuel pump connection. Just in case I ever need to get in there, having a bigger hole will make it much easier. I just used part of the piece I cut out of the trunk floor to add the drop trunk to make the new cover. Additionally I decided to make use of some of the spare/extra decorative screws I bought to hold my dash to the frame. I'm not sure if I plan to keep them or not, but I'll see how it looks once the carpet is installed. I also plan to spray the lower trunk area with additional sound insulation, once the weather warms up in the spring... it's been pretty cold the last few weeks in CO!

[Junbug]

More incremental progress this weekend. Finally finished putting the glovebox together. I thought it was very tedious and a bit frustrating but in the end it seems fine. I’ll be pulling the locking tab and catch out again to powder coat them but other than that it seems done. I also plan to look into a different locking mechanism on then glovebox door. Opening it can be a bit finicky as your only leverage to pull the door open is using the key. Something with a finger hold or bull tab would be much more convenient.

[Junbug]

Also plan to finalize my dash switch locations. Laid things out as you can see in the pics below. Plan to drill and mount things this week. Still working on final locations for my headlight switch as the four-way hazard switch. Somewhere above the lower dash area is the plan.

[Junbug]

A little more progress today on the dash. Drilled the final holes for gauge/buttons and switches. Only holes left to drill are for the dash mounts (I plan on having two roughly equal from center.)

At first I didn't like the contrast between the black plastic and the chrome, but its grown on me, and the amount of work to hand file all the small notches for each is dissuading me from changing them now

The pic above is from my drivers perspective.

I plan to put the two holes for mounting the dash near where the dark blue painters tape is with the small gold sharpie marker. Not final on the location yet, but its close to those locations where it won't interfere with the glovebox or any of the dash gauges.

[Junbug]

Here are the brackets I made to go under the top dash rail and the rivnuts, screws and washers that will hold the dash in place. I also have a grab handle under the glovebox with 1/4 inch steel support bars and three different under dash supports (DS, PS, middle) that will help keep the dash in place. I still haven't determined how I plan to secure these tabs to the top rail, but likely either rivets or rivnuts...

[Junbug]

So today I finished wiring all the headlights, brakes, taillights and turn signals. Surprisingly, everything worked on the first try. Only things I needed to fix was swap the poles on the 4-way hazards so the switch worked opposite and swap the high beam/low beam wires in the weatherpack connectors to my headlights as I guessed. The wires on the Hellas lights with LED bulbs from Breeze didn't say which was high beam. Pretty quick fix and everything is working perfect. On my RT turn signal i wired up the button on the end of the stalk for hi/low beam and flash to pass. I'm actually very happy all of that is done, and that it went right the first time.
The IDIDIT relay was easy to wire and I found a nice snug spot where it fit just perfectly.


Special thanks to Fman and Ted G, as well as Edward B and Papa for their previous posts and guidance on wiring the RT turn signal... The image below was referenced numerous times through the process.

Tomorrow, I'll be finishing out wiring the courtesy lights on the interior of the cockpit, driver and passenger side, along with adding the FFR provided LED lights to the trunk. I added a wire to the license plate light when I was finalizing the taillight wiring. I'm hoping it works with the courtesy lights.

[Junbug]

So lots of incremental progress and I finally got around to powder coating again. Did about 3 batches/cycles and caught up on a lot of parts I've been wanting to install but needed them to be PC'ed first. One was the LeMans fuel filler cap. I dis-assembled it into its separate individual moving parts and powder coated the parts individually. Also I got a locking fuel cap from Breeze that resulted in some modification to the filler neck as it gets replaced. The part I'm holding in my had here I cut off, unceremoniously with a hack saw.

Then the remaining inner hole needed to be expanded a bit to accommodate the new locking filler cap. I did that with a hand router, very slowly and gently.

Once that was done, I started re-assembling everything.

View from the bottom with the new locking filler cap installed.

View from the top.

Final view of everything assembled.

[Junbug]

I also finally finished assembling and mounting the dash.


Here is a picture of my under dash support for the passenger grab handle. All powder coated 1/8"x1/2" steel with stainless steel hardware. I set rivnuts into the 2"x2" square dash bar that the setup is bolted into. Rock solid.


Here is my under dash, center console bracket. It's primary function is to hold the courtesy light as well as my gauge adjustment buttons. Made from the original trunk aluminum I cut to install the drop trunk.


I also installed support brackets on the end of each side of the CF dash, each with a small LED tied to the courtesy light circuit. This one is on the passenger side and you can see a little more of the grab handle supports. You can also see the U-Brackets i put on each support. I plan to drill through the bottom of the dash and put hardware through to keep the dash more secure. That will be later once the dash goes in for "good".

And drivers side:


Only remaining tasks on the dash are to drill holes thr

[mmklaxer]

lookin' good!

[Junbug]

Last weekend I worked a bunch of small but time consuming tasks. I decided to install the trunk struts. Since I installed the Breeze Cubby, i needed to drill or cut through the cubby wall. That wasn't too hard, but I did spend some time ensuring the struts would clear the roll bars. The struts aren't perfectly straight, they have a slight cant toward the inside of the car but the struts function fine and clear while the trunk arms are at both the open and closed positions.




I ended up using a 1-1/2 inch hole saw and drilled small pilot holes first.

Here you can see the final location of the DR front pin for the strut. There is about 3/4" clearance between the strut and the roll bar.

[Junbug]

The next project was final placement of the wiper motor and wiper motor wiring.
Here's the final location for my wiper motor. There is just enough room for the wiring to clear the top of the motor and stay below the 3/4" bar. Likewise, on the bottom there is enough room for my coyote harness to fit under the motor, and stay snug up against the firewall.


I used the factory cutout on the PS side of the firewall for the location of the wiper wiring to penetrate. Pretty straight forward.

[Junbug]

Lastly I started securing some of the wiring harnesses as well as riveting in the F-panels.





This last pic is the headlight harness running under the radiator.

[460.465USMC]

I like what you're doing, Bryan. Really looks like a quality build. A number of custom touches.

[Junbug]

We put the wheels on her, gave her a rough alignment (with strings and following Jeff Kleiner's recommendations on the upper control arms) fired her up and took her out for the first go-cart ride. Both my son and wife came along (at different times)... She ran great, and only one minor issue, considering all that could have gone wrong!
https://youtu.be/QqAKTAfHerI

https://youtube.com/shorts/uv2vQP024...M5pIQSPQHK2-nG

Lots of big smiles!

[Junbug]

So, post first drive we went around and checked all joints, unions and connections for leaks, looseness and drips. Nothing to speak of except the coolant expansion tank. I found that there appears to be a small crack or bad weld on the bottom of the tank, where the overpressure release eyelet from the fill cap goes through the tank and comes out the bottom. I verified it wasn't coolant leaking through that eyelet, but rather forming a drip and coming through a small crack/gap in the weld. See point of arrow in pic below. I've reached out to the manufacturer to see what they plan to do. Worst case I'll need to take it to a local aluminum/fab shop and see if they can fix it. I'm not an expert at welding or aluminum welding so I'll go with asking the pro's for advice on this.

One more disappointing part will be taking off the gates power grip clamps and having to buy new ones...

[460.465USMC]

We put the wheels on her, gave her a rough alignment (with strings and following Jeff Kleiner's recommendations on the upper control arms) fired her up and took her out for the first go-cart ride. Both my son and wife came along (at different times)... She ran great, and only one minor issue, considering all that could have gone wrong!

Lots of big smiles!

Congrats, Bryan! Huge milestone with great success.

[Junbug]

So the company I ordered the expansion tank ended up shipping a new one. Couldn't get a hold of them via phone, or an email response for a few days, but miraculously got a shipping confirmation on Wednesday... The replacement expansion tank should arrive on Monday. So I spend the day draining what fluid I could from the leaking tank, removing the power grip clamps and taking the tank off. Went relatively smoothly, though it was painful cutting the clamps off as they're single use. Ordering more replacements tonight.
Additionally I took the time to cut/fit my radiator protector/cover. Tip of the hat to JohnK, as he did the same solution and it seems easy, straight forward and simple. Plus I think it looks great. I may also change out the upper breeze hinge bolts as they contrast with the other stainless bolts, but that's something that can come later.