Zee's Widow Maker (10489) - Coolant expansion tank

[zee]

I did a high glass silver, turned out great. What's funny now that I've got the car running and the body on, you hardly see any of it! Of course I would still have it done, but in the end you don't really see it as awesome as when it is a frame all by itself.

There's so much I am doing (or planning on doing) that's purely for me and no one else. Including things like these that even I won't see.

But

I will know :-).

[zee]

My build has been super slow. I was missing so many fasteners that I decided to stop the build until I get everything because I was no longer having fun.

Eventually "everything" was sent so I restarted, but since then every single time I sit down to do something, I find stuff missing. It's really annoying but hey, it is what it is. I am hoping most of my unknown missing fasteners / spacers / nuts are related to the front suspensions so once I am through this step, the process will go fast.

So eventually I thought I had everything. Sat down to do the front control arms:



Uh, no bolt. Got that from a Canadian builder who ordered it separately.

Let's go. Put it together and couldn't get it to the suggested setup. Doh, I forgot to cut it!




So I cut it. One of them went in fine but turned out that I messed up the thread of the other one. Damn, time to tap it.



Got this tapped and cleaned up:



And pretty close to the spec



And.....can't move further because more nuts and bolts are missing.

[zee]

So I paused everything, went psycho and collected every fastener and spacer I had. I measured everything and organized it all:



Surely that should help? Nope!

So I hit the hardware store and start buying stuff to unblock myself. Time to put the hub in. One goes in fine:



But the other one doesn't. Alright, undo it all and measure both hubs and the inside part of one hub is 5mm smaller in diameter than the other one. That's a pretty substantial difference. In fact, it's 2mm smaller than the spindle, so no way it's going to go in. The boxes are identical so I am guessing it's either defective or mispackaged. I had a hell of a time removing it (with a lot of trouble, I got it 1/4 of the way in) :



So now I am waiting on FFR yet again, waiting to resolve this and missing spacers and bolts.

I am really hoping this improves because everytime I sit down to build, I end up with a lot of frustration.

I was, however, able to visit this continuation cobra to get some ideas:

[Higgybulin]

Ooohh the plight of the Canadian builder! Been there Pal!! Thats the biggest hurdle, fasteners. You can track down a bunch of parts from the classifieds but almost all the sellers are still gonna use the bolts and spacers. The spindle, well thats on another level. Hang in there man!! Its worth it in the end!
Higgy

[zee]

Took a long break because I decided I wasn't going to touch anything until i got all the parts. I got super frustrated by having to stop because I was missing parts.

I was able to enjoy the Tail of the Dragon (and a bunch of other amazing roads in the Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia.



But I now have almost everything (frustratingly, one set of spacers took 4 attempts to get, but hey).



Finally got the front done.



I struggled a bit to get this thing in, but with raising the passenger side trick, it worked :



Sadly, missing the upper shaft so onto the backend:

This wasn't that bad, just took a lot of patience:

[zee]

I was unnecessarily nervous about taking these out, this was trivial:



But I cheated here and had the tire shop put these in, they did it for free in 10 minutes:



Also, it turned out that my rear end had some fluid. I prefer to put my own anyway, so we're fine:



This was much more of a pain than I thought it would be:



But it's finally in, thanks to free child labour:



And got this:

[zee]

So while doing the rear suspensions, I realized that two jam nuts FFR sent me were two different sizes. Unfortunately that was months ago and I couldn't find them locally, so had to buy them from FFR again (technically they sent them for free but I had to pay for shipping, but their FedEx shipping to Canada is $$ so same thing). Generally I source whatever I am missing locally.

It was relatively straightforward once I got all the parts, so no images.

The challenging part was the heater. I got the Vintage Gen II heater which is different from what FFR provides. The heater is designed to be mounted vertically under the dash, so some modifications had to be done.

I used FFR's method of installing the heater in the firewall after debating a few options. It turned out well.

The first step was to take all the pieces apart to take it as close to FFR's as possible. I used a little bit of paint to determine the mounting points :-).



Worked great!



The heater does have a little L shaped part sticking out. There was no way to cut it, so I had to make an opening in the firewall for it.



There's no template for it, so created one from cardboard.



Unfortunately, I put it too close to the crossbar. I had to shave the crossbar a little, you can see it in the picture:



If you look at the heater, it has a servo. You can switch from defrost (which is the top outlets) to footwell (there's a door that opens up). I need to make something to take the air from there to the footwells (this heater is designed to go vertically).



The heater looks good!

[zee]

Took a break and went to Detroit. Obviously, had to hit the Ford museum!





But then I went to the Legendary Motorcar showroom, which is coincidentally just 10 minutes from my place. And they have half a dozen originals.

[zee]

[zee]

IRS + rear battery box. I am really happy with how it came out.







Not done with the trunk sheet metal yet.

[Jim1855]

Zee,
I like it, nice work. What battery are you planning on?
I'm looking at something similar for the Challenge Car.
Jim

[zee]

Noco NLP 20. It's a powersport battery but with high cranking power. It "should" work (famous last words). I guess I'll find out.

IMG_4884.jpeg

[zee]

The suitcase bump and exposed roll bar originality mod. I really wanted it! So happy with how it's turning out! This plus the fact that the battery fits under the trunk with IRS really opens up the space.

[zee]

Really wanted an under-trunk battery with my IRS rear-end. That means I had to go with a smaller battery





I like the end result :-

[zee]

I love this tank. I skipped the straps and just bolted it:






I added enough slack on the PTFE hoses to allow my future self to drop the tank without disconnecting anything



The hard lines are nothing fancy to look at. They'll be functional.

[Windsor]

Neat.

What tank is that?

[zee]

Neat.

What tank is that?

It's the Boyd tank. Built like a real tank with a higher capacity.

[zee]

Went with the Superformance design for the dash. Things don't line up because I didn't really tighten them for this picture. I stressed over it unnecessarily until I decided I was just going to order another dash from FFR if I am not 100% happy with it (or have someone local bend and laser cut it). That made everything easy.

I'll decide if I am happy with it or not once the wiring is done.



The switches are for: hazard flashers, cruise on/off and RES/SET. For RES/SET, the switch is momentary-on/off/momentary-on.

I'll also have pull knobs on the corner for vent but I want the body on before I know where to put them.

Went with authentic Smiths gauges (including mechanical reverse speedo) for period correctness (as well as indicator lights that look just like the original). I don't plan to use FFR's vinyl. Instead, I'll use one with more texture that looks like the original.

I wired the dash as cleanly as I could, decided there were too many wires and took it apart to do it again with a wire diet. No one will ever look behind the dash but I want it to be perfect back there (because that's how you tell if someone paid attention to their build or cut corners).

[egchewy79]

looks great. I love seeing pics of car parts in someone's house. I'm sure you have an understanding partner to allow for the kitchen table to be used for part of the build. There was a pic of a former builder who stored his body in his living room. I'm sure that's floating around somewhere. I have a pic of me baking on caliper paint in my kitchen oven (with wife out of town that weekend, of course)

[zee]

looks great. I love seeing pics of car parts in someone's house. I'm sure you have an understanding partner to allow for the kitchen table to be used for part of the build. There was a pic of a former builder who stored his body in his living room. I'm sure that's floating around somewhere. I have a pic of me baking on caliper paint in my kitchen oven (with wife out of town that weekend, of course)

It'd make things a lot easier if she let me leave it there. I have to move it to the garage every time I am done :-).

A builder near me has his body inside the house.

[zee]

Lots of updates.

Tried to paint the tires. That was a fail. The paint came right out when I removed the stickers. I guess I need better technique.





I saw this at a car show. This builder used stickers. They look better than I imagined stickers to look. He did buff out his tires before putting the stickers though.

[zee]

Some other pictures of cars at the car show:

[zee]

Finally, did the wiring, did some harness dieting and put in the engine!



Gotta figure out how to attach this:



Also made everything quick release:



And the engine is in!!!!!

[egchewy79]

nice work on the wiring. looks real clean. congrats on the motor as well. that is a big milestone and frees up so much more room in the garage.

[zee]

nice work on the wiring. looks real clean. congrats on the motor as well. that is a big milestone and frees up so much more room in the garage.

Thanks. My wife is certainly happy.

I might remove the wire loom behind the dash (for the gauge wiring) because the wire behind them are very tidy. The loom hides that beauty :-D. But I put the loom in to add a layer of protection (and no one will see the stuff behind the dash anyway).

[Jeff Kleiner]

Zee,
Regarding tire stickers for the lettering. I used them on a customer build a couple of years ago. Before applying the rubber stickers with the provided special adhesive I ground off all of the sidewall lettering and smoothed them using a combination of a sanding drum in a die grinder and a couple of different grits on a DA. About an hour per tire.



Engine looks good in there!

Jeff

A0763507-43E8-4B56-AD99-8CB82E3662F3.jpg

[Mike.Bray]

You might check out this company. https://tredwear.com/

[rx7922]

love the fuel tank, what size or stats is the fuel tank

[zee]

love the fuel tank, what size or stats is the fuel tank

Boyd tank. It's solid. 22 gallons I believe.

[Blitzboy54]

I used https://www.tirestickers.com/product...ire-lettering/ They send you an example of what it looks like before they ship. This allows you to make changes before paying. I really liked the product. I did not smooth down the side walls but think that is a terrific idea and will next time.

[zee]

I have some more wire cleanup ideas that are completely unnecessary, but many things I've done in this build were done only because I wanted to.

While I wait for the ordered parts and figure out better how to tackle those things, I decided to experiment with the coolant expansion tank:



Sadly, my alternator is on the passenger side and it sits too high. One option is to move the alternator down or further out with a different bracket.

I discussed it with some other Canadian builders and they gave me an idea I hadn't thought of.

I could potentially cut the bracket and the pipe, and make both larger by 2". That'd work, but now I don't know if I'll have enough clearance under the hood.



So now that project is sidelined until I fit the body.

Alternatively, I could use a different bracket to move the alternator down, but then I'd have to worry about the belt fitting.

Decisions, decisions.