Jazzman’s #8745 "Flip Top" Build

[Jazzman]

I really don't know what prompted Jeff Miller to suggest replacing the fuel tank fill pipe grommet. I have not had any leak issues, haven't read about anyone else having any. I guess we will have to wait for "Da Bat" to enlighten us.

[Jazzman]

My hands are healing nicely. I was very impressed to find out that the pain from Carpel Tunnel Release surgery is so minimal I didn't even have to take aspirin during my recovery. It has now been a week since the surgery. The pain is minimal. Only when I have to put significant pressure using my thumb do I know that I was invaded. The numbness and tingling are almost completely gone. Only the tips of my middle fingers are still slightly numb. One of those was the one I ran through the table saw, so it may never be exactly right!! If you have been considering having this surgery done, I would definitely recommend it.

The Barrett Jackson Auction was a great event. It was great to get to visit with the crew from FFR and the other guests of FFR. The crew did a fine job of introducing many auction patrons to the challenges and rewards that is the "Built not Bought" experience. They also built a fine looking hotrod. Truth be told, I think they could have built three of them during the week. They all knew so well what to do, they breezed right through it. Impressive!! I heard that this was the first time in many years that FFR had come to Scottsdale for the King of all auto auctions. I do hope that it was a positive experience for them, and that they come back each year in the future. If you were a seller at the auction, you had two potential bits of unpleasantness: It rained quite a lot (which we always need!!), and attendance and prices were both down. If you were a buyer, you only were unhappy about the weather!!

I have been slowly and carefully working on very small projects, testing out my hands and nerves. I have been working on putting the heat/sound shielding throughout the cockpit. I was finally able to get that all done. Every surface now has a smooth coat of ThermoTec matting. It really makes the cockpit seem more substantial. No more tinny plinking on bare aluminum.



While some like to cover the tranny tunnel with carpet, I plan to cover mine with black leather to match the seats. I may even run matching leather down the sides of the tunnel. Still working that one out. It is important for me to retain access to the transmission area. Some have made some rather impressive hidden attachments for the tranny cover. I decided that I actually like the look of some black polished button head bolts that are accessible. I pulled out the old rivnut tool and went to work. I added three nutserts on to each side, all forward of the seats so they will be accessible after the seats are permanently installed. I also added two at the rear of the tranny cover.











While I had the rivnut tool out, I decided to add a few more nutserts. I found the cover for the fuel level sending unit, drilled the holes and popped the nutserts into place. I was going to do the same with the cover for the fuel pump, but I can't seem to find it! I know it is here, I saw it only a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, it will show up.



Watson's streetworks sent me a replacement for my defective ignition module. It took me a about 90 minutes to remove the old one and rewire in the new one. Well . . . strike two. The second one also has some sort of a problem with it. It will not trigger the auxilliury circuits. It goes from off to triggering the starter. I spent 30 minutes with the fine people at Watson's Streetworks. They helped me check everything. Sure enough, It was not my wiring. This one has a defect as well. They promised to put a new one in the mail to me tomorrow. They have been great to work with, but I sure hope the third time is the charm!!

[Jazzman]

Quite a while ago I installed the inside side panels in the lower half of the trunk. Some time after that I removed them. I think I had it in my mind that I was going to run some wires inside there. I really can't remember what I was thinking. Then I got smart and attached the outside panels to the trunk. Well now I can't get to the bottom row of rivets on the inside panel. Bottom line: Put these inside panels in before you put on the outside panels. They are done now, sans the bottom row of rivets. Though certainly minimal, a bit of silicone will seal the space at the bottom.

[Jazzman]

I have now survived the worst flue/cold that in my memory! I have been unable to work on the car for a solid week. Finally today the cold let go, and I am on the mend. I expect to be 100% by tomorrow. But even at 80% today, I could not resist getting back out to the shop. The boredom was killing me!

I started by installing the battery that had arrived Monday. It just barely fit, but slipped in it did.



Lesson: I should have used standard battery cable ends. It would have simplified this process. I had planned to use the cable ends that FFR provided, but they turned out to be too tall to fit into the battery box.



I'm not genius, but I am pretty sure it is a bad idea to have both terminals touching the aluminum top cover! A quick shopping trip to my friends at DelCity, and I had the right tool for the job. These cable ends allow easy attachment of the cable ends but keeps them low enough to clear the top. I did have to enlarge the holes in the cable ends, but that was pretty simple.





The new, smaller 1.00 inch Wilwood master cylendar for the clutch also arrived earlier this week. It was a difficult, slow, and somewhat messy process to get the old one out. It works a bit easier than the 1 1/8" standard one that Forte provides. I am glad I did it, though it is not as easy to push the clutch as a power assisted one. It's good enough. I think it is a bit more smooth as well.



Give me a new toy, and I go crazy with it. A while back I purchased a much stronger rivnet setting tool, one with longer handles that require both hands. It makes setting rivnuts much easier than the one handed unit that broke. I decided that since access to the hood area is going to be greatly improved with the Flip Top, I should make it possible to access the two covers over the DS footbox. I hope I never need to get in there, but if I do, I would prefer not to have to remove the body to get to it. I started by setting the inner and outer cover.



I then went looking for the small cover for the hole in the inner cover. I hate it when I miss something!!



Yep, with all the trips to the powder coater, somehow this piece got missed! Argh!! I put it on for now, and will remove it to have it coated when I am sure there is not something else that needs to be coated!

[Jazzman]

This is very likely to be the color scheme that I will go with. I have wanted Candy Apple Red since the beginning of the project. I have seriously consider other great colors such as Lexus Indigo Ink Pearl, Tangerine Pearl, even Ice Pearl (white with a tinge of blue). I have changed my mind 10,000 times, but my heart is set a flutter each time I see this color:





The photos are from a company called "Classic Recreations". I found them searching for "Candy Apple Red". Unfortunately there are about 200 different "candy apple reds". I am going to call Classic Recreations on Monday to see if they might share exactly what color they used. Time will tell if they consider that a trade secret. Do any of you paint experts happen to know what paint color this is?

[2bking]

It's close to the Ford RZ Candy Red that Paul and I used. It's a tri-coat paint so the final color can be varied by the number of color coats applied which is the mid coat. I used three coats for the body and five for the phantom stripe. The picture looks like some black air brush accents were added where sharp bends occurred in the body panels.

[Jazzman]

The goal today was to begin fabricating the custom nose cone to go on the inside of the nose oval to the radiator. It didn't get done. I woke up way too early this morning, and couldn't go back to sleep. I came down to the shop to begin what I hope will be the penultimate installation of the trusses under the hood. I retreived all the parts from the powder coating box. I am glad that I numbered all the mounting plates that attach the trusses to the hood. Even with the numbers on them, it still took a bit of doing to sort them all and get them installed. I am pleased to tell you that this process really went very smoothly. Just to be sure nothing would be cross threaded or that the threads have any residual resin in the them, I decided to clean the threads of perforated disks with a die. I could only do it by hand, and thankfully that is all it took.



After that, it was just a matter of lining up the parts, loosely attaching the mounting plates to the trusses. It is important to remember to tighten the #8x32 nuts that hold the mounting plates to the hood before you tighten the nuts that hold the plates to the trusses.





Before I attach the hood to the frame, I needed to make consistent holes for rivets around the perimeter of the nose oval. It was just more simple to do it now than to wait till it was on the frame. I made a template out of scrap aluminum so I could bend it around the curves. I wanted a 7/8" setback and 3 inch spacing.



I chose a center location to work from, and then drew marks all the way around the nose.



Unfortunately that's as far as I got on that project.

[Jazzman]

I did get the hood attached to the frame again. More lessons! I had forgotten and installed backwards the bolts and nuts that attach the small hinge plate to the hinge arms. This meant that when I went to attach the hinge system to the trusses, the nut was in the way. After chastising my self, I had to take the time to remove and reverse each bolt in the hinge mechanism. NOTE TO SELF FOR THE NEXT TIME: ALL BOLTS ON THE HINGE MECHANISM MUST HAVE THE NUTS TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE CAR!. (Photo is the correct way.)



It still took quite some time, and help from my bride, to get the hood/truss attached to the hinge system. I had forgotten that the way to get it to fit correctly is to leave the bolts slightly loose, close the hood, then tighen the nuts on the trusses. The hood is in it's resting position when the nuts are tightened. Once I did this, it pretty well set into place. That's when the fun began.

I was very pleased with the way the upper pair of elephant ears flowed nicely to the edge of the opening in front of the exhaust pipes.





My error was do do this before the engine and exhaust pipes were installed. Apparently the headers I am using exit somewhat forward of the place that FFR marked the body cutout location. In it's current location, the upper elephant ears scrape by the forward bolt location on the exhaust pipes.





I have two choices: leave it as is, or remove and reattach the channel that bonds the elephant ears to the sides of the hood. If I leave it as is, it is quickly going to get scratched through to the aluminum and look bad. If I try to redo the attachment system, I fear I will make it all fit even worse. At this point the two halves of the elephant ears fit together perfectly. But if I leave it, the upper elephant ears will get very hot being right next to the header. The mounting bracket that the ear is attached to will also get very hot. When it does, the bonding cement will release. I am pretty sure I am going to have to redo at least part of the mounting frame, but I am not sure how much. Can I slowly bend the bottom 8" of the ear to provide clearance without the rest of the ear deforming? I don't think so. I am considering just adding a striker plate to the place where it will rub and allow it to rub. Best answer when you don't know what to do: sleep on it.

[Jazzman]

Back to wiring tonight. I started by putting weather packs on each of the six running lights, four red for the rear, two yellow for the front. I decided to trim the red wires to leave 8" of working distance. This should be plenty to go from the end of the wiring harness to the mounted locations on the rear of the car. I left the front lines much longer because there will need to be more ability to move with the movement of the Flip Top. I tested one of the red lights to be sure which wire controlled which function, and made a decision of how I would standardize the locations of the wires in the male side of the three position weather packs:

Red = Running light > Location "A" on the weather pack.
Black = Ground > Location "B".
Green = Turn signal/Brake light > Location "C".



I then turned my attention to installing the weatherpacks on the rear of the wiring harness, both left and right. The good news is that I am close on my wiring. The running lights all work correctly.



The frustrating part is that the brake/turn signal function is working too well: both lights light up brightly when power is applied only to the turn signal function. Here is how I wired things up. Perhaps one of the experts can correct my faulty wiring. At the rear of the car there are four wires:

Black - ground
Tan - running lights
Purple - Brakes
white or yellow - turn signals right and left respectively.

Each light at the rear will need a ground wire, a tan running light wire, and a Purple brake wire. Only the top light should get a white or yellow because only the top light should function when the turn signal is activated. I began by clipping the ground wire near the last point that the wiring harness is attached to the frame. I then made up two ground wires, one for each light, and attached these two new wires to the short ground wire and joined them together at a ring terminal. The ring terminal will be riveted onto the frame to provide a solid and direct ground for each light individually as well at terminating the ground wire from the wiring harness. I split the purple brake light line and the tan running light wires into two wires, one which will go to each light. I left the turn signal line alone. *** EDIT: DO NOT SPLIT THE PURPLE LINE. PUT BRAKE IN ONE LIGHT AND TURN SIGNAL IN THE OTHER. SEE NEXT COUPLE OF POSTS. ***



After trimming each wire and installing all the weatherpack metal terminals on each wire, I assembled the weather packs as follows:
Tan running light in each light to the "A" location (connects to the red wire in the light pigtail)
Black ground wire in each light to the "B" location (connects to the black ground wire in the light pigtail)
Purple brake light to the lower light to the "C" location, Purple and yellow or white wires together to the upper light at the "C" location. (each of these connects to the bright light function of the light pigtail, the green wire) *** EDIT: DO NOT PUT PURPLE AND EITHER YELLOW OR WHITE TOGETHER. PURPLE GOES IN ONE LIGHT, WHITE OR YELLOW IN THE OTHER. ***

At the moment, when power is applied only to the right turn signal wires, both the right lights are activated. (at least no light lit on the left side!!!



My issue may also be in the wiring under the dash. I am still trying to figure all that out. The running lights will have their own switch, their own relay, and their own fuse. The relay will be powered by the Headlight #2 hot feed, the one that comes off the 15amp fuse in the RF fuse panel.

[Jeff Kleiner]

Kevin,
Unless you use a module with the logic to allow directionals to override brake lights you can't have brakes on all four rear lamps. The kit's Ron Francis harness is set up so that all 4 lamps are illuminated for tail lights with one on each side used for brake lights and the other on each side used for turn signals. I prefer to orient them so that the uppers are brake lights for better visibility. When using that configuration:

---Tan harness wire at each corner is for tail lights and will go to the low element on all four light assemblies via the red/yellow lamp wire.

---Purple harness wire at each corner is for brake lights and will go to the bright element on the upper light assembly per side via the green lamp wire.

---Yellow harness wire on the driver's side is for left turn and goes to the bright element on the lower light assembly via the green lamp wire.

---White harness wire on the passenger side is for right turn and goes to the bright element on the lower light assembly via the green lamp wire.

---Black wire on all joins with the black harness ground.

Good luck!

Jeff

[edwardb]

Jeff beat me to it, and provided the needed details. Your brake wire to both bright elements gives the turn signal bright element a path to light the second bulb. With the standard harness, you can only light one at a time. I put the brakes on top, turn signals on the bottom.

[Jazzman]

Thanks guys! I was pretty sure that was going to be the answer. It does make sense. I sort of wondered when I combined the brake and turn wires if that would cause issues. I should have listened to the little voice in my head. (No, not the little voice that says it is always time for Pizza! NO It is not time for pizza NOW, it's 8 am!! HUSH! I am trying to work!!)

Edwardb, i believe you chose to use LED inserts from Watson's Streetworks on these lights. After seeing them, do you feel they are significantly brighter? Is there any change to the wiring if I decide to use them? I have some stuff to return to Watson's anyway, so I was debating just exchanging the parts I am returning for the LED inserts.

[edwardb]

Edwardb, i believe you chose to use LED inserts from Watson's Streetworks on these lights. After seeing them, do you feel they are significantly brighter? Is there any change to the wiring if I decide to use them? I have some stuff to return to Watson's anyway, so I was debating just exchanging the parts I am returning for the LED inserts.

Yes, I have a full Watsons's Streetworks lighting package in my build. Their red and amber 1157 LED's, their LED headlights, and their solid state flashers. Everything is now wired and working. Just finished today. Your first question, yes the 1157 LED's plug directly into the same socket as an incandescent 1157. Yes, they are brighter than the incandescent bulbs. I don't know if you would consider it significant, but definitely brighter. The other thing that's noticeable is they light instantly at full intensity. That's a normal LED characteristic. Incandescent bulbs have a slight ramp-up when they light. Probably that's part of the impression of the LED's seeming brighter. I put LED 1157's from Advance Auto in #7750. I don't remember the brand. Just what they had on the shelf a year or so ago. The Watson's lights are much brighter than those. I compared them side-by-side. All of the above is about the 1157's. The LED headlights in the new build make the stock halogens in #7750 look yellow and dim. Huge difference there.

[Jazzman]

It was pretty simple to fix my error from last night. I clipped the extra purple brake light wire out of the rear lights that I had mistakenly attached in the same location as the turn signal. Now all four weatherpacks have three wires in each one. No overlap. And the good news is that it worked!

Wiring the PS front of the lights proved to be almost a repeat of the rear. I had to split the ground wire into two, one big one for the headlights, one slightly smaller one for the running light. The running/turn/ground set was put into a three way weatherpack just like the rear lights: Running on "A", ground in the middle on "B", and Right Turn on "C". The headlights, though slightly larger wires, were installed in similar fashion: Low Beam on "A", ground in the middle on "B", and High Beam on "C".

Wiring up the DS front light plugs proved to be much more complex than any of the other three corners. All these things had to be taken into account in this same area:

1. Headlights, low beam, high beam, and a large ground
2. Running light, Left Turn signal, ground
3. Driving light, running light, ground
4. Horn power, ground
5. lights under hood, one positive, one ground.
6. a consolidated ground wire accumulating all the grounds together at one point and attached directly to the frame.

Getting these 14 wires all set to their correct lengths was the easy part. Accumulating 5 large and small ground wires and bundling them into a ring terminal proved much more challenging. Suffice to say I started with the large wires and split outward to the smaller ones until I had all the ground wires that I needed. I can't really wire up the headlights yet because I don't have large enough weatherpack terminals for the largest wires. I will have to order a few of those. The running lights on the left were wired up just like the right and the rears. The Horn is all there, I just have to trace the wires and link them up to the horn relay and ultimately the horn button.

The Driving light and under hood wiring proved to be the next big challenge. There are two wires in the Front harness that I will not need to use in their originally designed form. It is quite handy to have them there, and to have them already hooked up to the necessary relays. The Dark blue wire that was originally designed to power the fan will be re-purposed to power the driving lights. The Dark Blue wire goes down the front harness to a 30 Amp fuse, perfect for the driving lights. The other side of this fuse goes to the Cooling Fan relay. Full power is fed out of the cooling fan relay to the Dark blue wire. Incoming power to the relay is already fed off the main battery feed directly from my switched bus bar. Here is where it gets tricky . . .

The front harness also has a green wire marked Fan Thermo switch. Since I don't need to feed the fan, I also don't need to use the Thermostat wire. I will re-purpose this green wire to power the under hood LED lights. I still need to find some sort of switch for these. I was planning to put in a mercury switch so the lights would come on automatically, but I am thinking that is a bad idea because the lights would be on anytime the hood is open. This could become a problem if the hood was open all day at a car show. Of course I'm not sure how much current two 8 LED strings will pull. I'm thinking of putting in a switch inside the engine compartment that can be turned on when needed. Still working on that.

Returning to the green fan thermo wire from the front harness: That wire goes back to the cooling fan relay. When it enters the relay, there are two green wires attached at that same point. The second green wire, also marked fan thermo switch, goes up the main harness, makes a u-turn, and goes back out the Sending units harness that currently goes into the engine compartment. My plan is to use the green wire that currently goes into the engine compartment to connect to the driving lights switch. When the switch is closed, it will trigger the relay, pushing full power through the fuse to the driving lights. I plan to clip off the second green wire at the relay, the one that goes out the front harness, and extend this wire to whatever length is necessary to feed power to the under hood LED lights. By clipping this wire right at the relay, it will completely sever the green wire from receiving power from the relay. This should be fine, because the under hood LED's draw very little power. I am going to check with Watson's Streetworks to find out how much they draw, but I suspect it is minimal. The critical trick is making sure I clip the correct green wire, so as not to render the relay useless for the driving lights!!

Here we go!!

[Jazzman]

I cut the right wire! The green fan thermo wire from the front harness is now available to be used independently, (it is not hooked up, just loose above the fuse panel), and the green fan thermo wire from the relay is accessible at the top behind the dash. I know this needs to be connected into the switch that I have for the driving lights.



I applied power to the green wire to the relay, hoping the driving lights would come to life, but no joy there yet. I am going to have to spend a bit more time analyzing the wires coming into and out of the relay. More on this tomorrow. It's too early in the morning now to think that hard!!

I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how and where to hang the horns. After trying several unsuccessful and more complicated scenarios, I opted to simply use the rectangular bracket that came with the horns. I hung them from the inboard side of the front frame rail. I needed the clearance to allow the hood trusses to pass by the horns without interference.





At first I tried to connect them in series. Based on the "dying goose" sound they made, that is clearly NOT the way to wire them. I rewired them to be in parallel, and HOLY SMOKE ARE THEY LOUD!! I didn't expect the stock horns to be that good. Where were these things when I had a Harley?!! They will do a great job of getting attention.

[Jazzman]

Success! Big strides today in the process of getting the wiring done. I started by wiring up the Tangent driving lights and getting a weatherpack connector on the end. The tangent lights have good ways to route and retain the wiring. I chose to put all the wires inside a piece of the small convolute tubing.



The female side of the driving lights harness was already hooked up, so I plugged it in. Remember that I am using the Dark Blue fan power wire, the fuse for the fan, and the fan relay to power the driving lights. It was my assumption (I now know incorrect!) that the green wire for the fan thermo is a positive lead. In other words, I expected that when I applied power to the green fan thermo wire that the relay would be triggered and the lights would go on. This was not the case. After studying the relay, I began to speculate that this green wire was in the same location as the ground wire on other relays I had seen, location 86. To test this theory, I just touched the end of the green wire to the frame. The driving lights sprang to life! Yeah!! From here all I had to do was to connect the blue wire from the driving light switch to the green wire from the relay, and the black wire from the switch to a ground. I hooked it up with wire nuts. It worked! I went back and fully connected the wires with compression couplers and shrink covering. The driving lights now work at the push of a button. I had to learn to think of the circuit in reverse: the power is always available to the relay, but the relay is only triggered when I push the driving light button to connect it to ground.



I just set the driving lights up there so I could see if they were working as expected. In this photo you see just the running lights working. It is sort of hard to tell, but the Tangent lights have a secondary blue light. I have hooked them up to the running lights circuit. When the driving lights are turned off, you can see the blue hue. However, they are pretty dim, so I am going to look for an LED replacement for all four of the bulbs in the driving light bar. You can also tell the running lights are working because the right front running light can be seen hanging off the hood truss. Again, I just wanted to be able to see it while I was sitting in the drivers seat working on the wiring.



I was pretty proud of my accomplishment. I used an existing circuit, with an appropriate fuse, a pre-wired relay, and the right size wiring to power an entirely different piece of the puzzle. I was toasting my genius with a long pull on my bottle of water, when I realized one problem: The fan power relay is a part of the "Battery " section of the RF fuse panel. Thus it gets power even when the ignition is turned off. The driving lights will come on even when the car is completely turned off! Hmmm. It's not a huge problem, but it certainly opens me up to Murphys law: If a driving light can be left on to drain your battery, it will be left on!!

I moved on to the headlights. I found a very helpful diagram from Wilson's Streetworks which showed how to wire up the four wire and five wire relays in a series to connect up the headlights:



This really helped me to figure out how everything for both the High and low beams, as well as the dimmer switch and the master switch, all get connected together. The only problem I encountered initially was that the "black" wire from the 4 pole relay is actually "white" on my relay. All the other colors aligned. I initially connected all the various wires with wire nuts just to be sure it would work. It did, sort of. For reasons I could not initially identify, the low beams were on all the time, even when the ignition was off. (A problem, perhaps??!!) I took a closer look at the wires on the 4 pole relay. All were in the locations I expected except the white one. Instead of being at location 87 where i expected it to be, it was actually at location 87A, the center post location. I quickly figured out how remove the spade connections from the relay, moved the white (should have been black!) wire over to location 87, and voila! The headlights only came on when the ignition is on. No photos of that yet. I have the Watson's Streetworks LED headlights, but I have not wired them up yet. I have to order some larger Weatherpack connector pins for the very large size of the headlight wires. I was just working with test leads.

I now have the running lights working at all four corners, the driving lights working, and the headlights as far as they can go until I wire up the new headlights for weatherpacks. My list of wiring tasks in getting shorter:

1. Hook up all the wires from the Russ Thompson turn signal system to the RF harness wires.
2. Figure out how to get power from the oil pressure sending unit to the gauge using the existing Coyote wiring harness wires.
3. Figure out how to hook up the fan light to tell me when the fan is running
4. Decide if I am going to install a stereo at this time, order all the parts, and get it put it. I am leaning toward doing it, though I am concerned I won't be able to hear it well.

There are probably more items for this particular checklist, but I can't think of them at the moment.

[Jazzman]

January/February in Scottsdale is Car Show heaven. Next weekend there is going to be yet another car show, this one in Fountain Hills, the Concours in the Hills car show. http://www.concoursinthehills.org/ It is a benefit show for the Boys and Girls Clubs in the greater Phoenix area. The local Cobra club was contacted to be the anchor of the show. They will have a Cobra gunship helicopter there, and they wanted to surround it with the land-going versions of the Cobra. I had planned to attend, but earlier this week the leader of the Cobra Club put out a request for additional cars to really make the display pop. Clearly, mine is not quite finished, so I had no plans to take it. However, taking a page from Edwardb about showing off the Cobra under the skin, I contacted the Cobra club and sent photos of my car. Appearanlty they felt that this might be very interesting for the show attendees to see. Now I am checking my to-do list to see what I should get done before I take the car out to the show. I am not going to get too crazy about it, but I don't want anything that someone might hurt themselves on. I am very excited to show it off, even at this stage. If you are in the area, please come by and look me up. I shouldn't be too hard to find: I am pretty sure I will be the only car there without a body!!

[Jazzman]

The goal today was to get the seats bolted down. Since I have to drive it next weekend, I want to have it as "together" as I can. I know that I will have to remove all this stuff to put in the carpet. I began by attaching the inside seat belts to their respective locations. A 1/2" drill and a bit of persuasion, and they are attached. Those are really substantial bolts that Simpson provides. No worries of them breaking.



To get maximum leg room, the seats should be mounted flat on the floor as instructed in the FFR Manual. However, since I am vertically challenged, i have a bit of wiggle room with the ergonomics. I decided I would be markedly more comfortable if the seats were angled back just a little bit. I decided to add 1 1/2" of 3/4" square channel under the front of the seat. I cut two lengths of 3/4 square channel to length. Each was long enough to support the square frame on each end.



I drilled holes at 1.5" and 7.5" from the outside of the square frame for some 3.5" long 3/8" bolts I had purchased just for this purpose. I drilled both support bars simultaneously.



I then marked where the seat should go, drilled the holes, and bolted it into place . . . you really don't believe it was that easy do you?!! The first hole I drilled was not at 7.5" from the outside, It was about 8.75". When I drilled this hole through the steel base plate, it was too close to the 4" round frame rail. Duh!! I tried to miss it, but didn't move far enough away. Back to the drill and drill press. I drilled a second set of holes, punched them through, and the front bolts were ready. Or so I thought. I had measured twice, but appearantly I needed to measure a third time. When I got the front holes fixed in place, the seat sat about 1/2" forward of it's optimal location. I carefully enlarged the holes so the seat could slide rearward. It looked good, so I moved on to the rear seat bolts.

It looked to me like it would be a good idea to have at least one of the rear bolts go through the 2" square channel under the rear half of the cockpit floor. I wasn't too keen on having both rear bolts just attached to the .040 Aluminum sheeting, even if it did have Thermotec liner on it! After a bit of figureing, I found that I could put one bolt through the side rail of the seat, and it would be line up perfectly with the 2" square channel. I drilled the holes in the back half of the seat frame, one at about 7.5" from the side, the other directly above the square channel.



remember that the seat pictured is the PS seat. The DS seat will be exactly opposite of this. I had to englarge and adjust the seat holes just a bit to get it all to line up correctly and bolt down as it should . When I finally had it where I wanted it, I bolted it all down. It wasn't as perfect as I might have liked, but it all worked out in the end. It just took longer than I expected.

[Jazzman]

JB Weld may be very good for many uses, but clearly bonding aluminum is not it's designed use. I must have had a brain burp when I decided to use this fine product to attach the hidden mounts to the back of the dashboard. I caught the corner of one of the attaching 90 degree aluminum pieces and popped it off. I have, and have used many times, the 3M Composite and Metal bonding adhesive. For some reason I had it in my mind that it was ONLY to bond metal to Composite materials. Turns out it is just as good to bond metal to metal as well. I should have used it in the first place. It was surprisingly easy to pop off all the rest of the mounts by hand. Glad I went to the effort of replacing them now. It did provide another opportunity to adjust slightly the positioning of the dashboard.

I wrapped the dash frame hoop with wax paper where the adhesive might squeeze out. I screwed the aluminum angle pieces through the wax paper and tightened them into their appropriate position. After applying the 3M bonding adhesive to the face of each angle mount piece, I clamped the dashboard exactly where I wanted it. The adhesive is supposed to cure in three hours, but I left it alone for 18 hours. This morning I remove the screws holding the mountings in place. The dashboard came away cleanly. There was almost no squeeze out at all. Best of all, the pieces were bonded cleanly to the back of the dashboard.



I pulled out the Russ Thompson turn signal system and worked on fitting it. I had to enlarge the opening for the steering shaft slightly to allow the turn signal shaft to fit through the dashboard. Easily done with die grinder and a carbide cutter. The Russ Thompson directions say you can cut down the length of the tube by about 1/2" to adjust fitment. In order to fit the steering wheel as closely as possible to stock FFR location, I decided to trim off about 3/8". With that done, the system fits together perfectly.



I pulled out the shoulder harnesses to fit them and add the attachment point for the anti-submarine belt (the one between your legs). At first I just bolted the piece directly to the floor. However, I found that I the belt itself was also tightened to the floor, making it impossible to adjust the length of the belt. I disconnected the bolt, and added two thick washers between the attachment piece and the floor. This provided the necessary space to allow the belt to be adjusted.





The Simpson shoulder harnesses are the real deal!! They are plenty long enough to go around someone of my . . . more substantial countenance!! They are also quite the system to put on. Certainly much more complex than your usual daily driver seat belt. But you surely will be held in place.

[wareaglescott]

Nice progress!
Posting this one pretty late/ or early! 45 minutes before I woke up this morning. Even with the time zones Im wondering if you ever sleep. haha

[R Thomas]

Thanks for all the great pics and text that go along with them. Nice additions to the manual and food for thought on mods for my own project.

[valin]

Hey Kevin! It was great to meet you down at the Barrett Jackson show. The build is looking awesome! That color that you have finally decided on will look gorgeous. Great choice! Will the stripes be black, or more of a dark grey?

[Jazzman]

Hey Kevin! It was great to meet you down at the Barrett Jackson show. The build is looking awesome! That color that you have finally decided on will look gorgeous. Great choice! Will the stripes be black, or more of a dark grey?

Great meeting you as well. I hope you come back next year to the B/J Auction. It is quite an event, isn't it!! If I can find the color, it will be great. I have talked to the company that made that car, and they readily agreed to tell me the color brand and codes. However, They clearly have more important things to do, and thus far have not gotten back to me. I have called twice and been told the same thing: "Be glad to, let me get your phone number . . ."

It looks to me like the black stripe is more a dark grey pearl almost to black. Whatever I choose it will be a pearl, and will probably not be a "Pure" black, but will be almost black. Certainly darker than the candy apple red on the rest of the car. I just hope I can find the base color. I never could have imagined how difficult it is to find just one red, nor how many different shades of red there are!!

I'll try to order up a bit of better weather the next time you come down!

[Jazzman]

Note to self: A Roadster will not drive up onto a 23" tall trailer using 60" ramps. Yesterday I borrowed a 14,000lb capacity equipment trailer from a friend of mine. At 19 feet long, it had plenty of room. However, when I went to drive the car up onto the trailer, that drated frame height caught almost immediately on the edge of the trailer. I tried several variations of approach angle and trailer to curb offsets, but that car was not going onto that trailer.

I needed to get the car on the trailer because I was scheduled to take it to a welder to have the rear legs of the roll bars welded into place. I called to tell the welder that I wouldn't be on time, but they told me no problem, they would be there all day. I returned the large trailer (a 90+ minute round trip). During the drive i called some of my mentors to see if they had suggestions. Edwardb came through for me again by suggesting I rent a trailer from Uhaul. Uhaul's car trailers are 14' long, but only 17" off the ground, and the center area is open: fewer items to hit the frame, oil pan, and bell housing on. It also has 6' ramps. The suggestion was also made to get some 10' long 2x10's to add to the ramps. A quick trip to Home Depot, I am the proud owner of two flat trees! I quickly returned home to get the car on the second trailer. I got it all set up, and thankfully the car went right up onto the trailer without a hitch! YEAH!! 12:30pm. Good. Plenty of time to get over to the welder.

That was when the phone rang. The welder told me that it was getting too late in the day to start my welding project, and it would be about a 3 hour job. We are talking about TIG welding the circumference of two 1.75" stainless steel tubes. When the welder was at my home, he told me it might take about 90 minutes to do the welding. I know virtually nothing about TIG welding, but even 90 minutes seems like a lot of time to go around two 1.75" tubes. So now the job has grown to a 3 hour process. Allow me to translate: "It is friday afternoon, and I really don't want to work that hard this late in the day. I don't really care that you will have to rent the trailer for an additional day. Too bad." The welding will be done at 6am on Monday.

Today was exciting. I left the house, trailer and Roadster in tow, to attend my first car show as an exhibitor. I met up with 28 other Cobra's to drive together to the Concours in the Hills show in Fountain Hills. Fountain Hills was built about 40 years ago as a rural but accessible community to north Scottsdale. Today both Scottsdale and Fountain Hills have grown to the point that you can no longer differentiate where one city ends and the next begins. The centerpiece of this community is a large park with a manmade lake and one of the largest fountians in the world. It really is a very beautiful location for a show. This charity fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs has grown to an enormous event. There were over 600 cars in the show this year. The 28 Cobras lined up in a chevron formation leading toward a Cobra helicopter gunship parked at the end of a penninsula! That is a serious piece of hardware!!



I was blessed to have a location under a large tree, so we had shade to sit in virtually all day. My parents joined me at the show. Mom read and dad carved under the shade of the tree. I only sat for a few minutes all day!



The show was spread all around the lake and on multiple levels of the rolling hills surrounding the lake. The organizers had done a very good job of laying out the car collections. There were distinct areas for Cobras, Lamborghini's, Porsche, Jaguar, BMW, . . . I am sure the rest of the show was laid out in similar fashion, but that is as far as I got before I had to return to my car. The show opened at 10am, but there were very large crowds looking around well before the emcee announced "Gentleman and Ladies, start your engines". It is an overwhelming wall of sound to hear 28 Cobra's all fire up simultaneously!!



My car was the only car I saw that was partially completed. I was nervous about that, but I needn't have been. Response was very positive. I talked all day long to people that have built or dream to build their own Cobra. I was able to extol the virtues of the Factory Five Racing Kit to many interested customers. I think I will contact FFR and ask for a couple of dozen brochures that I can have on hand at these shows. Quite a few people asked me for information, several asked if I worked for FFR. (I guess that's what I get for wearing an FFR cap!!) The response to my car was universally positive. (Clearly those that didn't like it were polite enough to walk off to the next car before they made disparaging comments!!) Everyone I talked to loved the attention to detail, loved the engine, many said they expected to see the completed car here next year. (They will not be disappointed!)

It turned out to be an expensive and somewhat frustrating process to get the car to the show, but once there, it was an entirely enjoyable experience. Beautiful weather, light breeze, picturesque location, lots of great cars, like minded car nuts to talk to. Many made positive comments about how much they loved the Flip Top, how convenient it is, how unique it is. One other Cobra owner wants to pull the body off his MKI and do the Flip Top modification this summer. It really was a great day!

I'm exhausted!!

[Jazzman]

This post is entirely personal, please indulge me. In 1982, I was introduced to the amazing labyrinth that is Jazz and Jazz fusion by the great Al Jarreau. His touchstone album "Look to the Rainbow (Live in Europe)" met me where I was emotionally. His soaring vocal range, amazing rhythm, and effortless joy in his music spanned the range of all my young emotions. It moved me to investigate the broad range of jazz/soul/pop/R&B that were Al Jarreau's influences. I was blessed to see him in concert six times, each more moving than the previous. My eldest son and I were lucky enough to see one of his concerts in Palm Springs last fall. It was a memorable opportunity to see my son finally understand the joy that was Al Jarreau. (He is wonderful on a recording, but truly amazing live!!) Long after the events occurred, I discovered that his birthday is only one day before mine (albeit many years before!!) and he and I both gave our son's the same name. I desperately wanted to meet this man, but sadly never had the opportunity. I truly believe there is some sort of a musical connection between us.

And today, the music died.

The "most technically gifted performer in jazz fusion today" passed away at the age of 76. I am "Jazzman" today because this amazing vocal Jazz man created musical art that reached my soul. God's blessings on Mr. Jarreau for the hundreds of musical gifts he left us all.

If you have no idea who I am talking about, here is a sample of his genius, recorded live in Germany in 1976.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsVGnIgR5tk

(and now back to our regularly scheduled build thread!)

[SSNK4US]

My two cents... I'm an avid music lover, everything from Tool and Godsmack to Glenn Miller and pretty much everything in between.... probably even more then cars... and that's saying a lot. I had the opportunity to see Al live in nov 2015 (after a 4 plus hour drive) and it was truly a moving and amazing experience. I understand your comment about the day the music died.... but I hate seeing the words. His wonderful magical musical genius will always live on in our hearts and minds....
Rest In Peace Al.... he will be missed

[Jazzman]

Goal today was to get dirty! Goal achieved!! It is time to trim the front and rear roll overs where the body pours over into the cockpit. Jeff "Da Bat" Miller had specified what he wanted me to do (and not do!!) before I deliver the body into his hands for paint. He instructed me to trim back the rolls to the point where the mold ended. You can't really make it out in the photos, but on your own you will see there is a slight change of angle just before the edge is trimmed off. I laid a tape line to show me how far to sand the edge back.





Sanding the edge back was easy with the Die grinder, but you had to be very careful not to oversand. It was a little like power carving. A smooth and steady hand with light pressure won the day. Just as I was about done with the rolled edges, my die grinder bound up and stopped working. Here is what I saw:



I'm not sure why that ring came loose, but it took a bit of encouragment to get it completly off. It had cross threaded just a little, but not enough to do any irreparable damage. Once I got it open I decided to see if any other damage had been done. The gears that mesh to turn horizonal power into vertical rotation had some scuffs where they had not quite meshed perfectly. Again, not enough to destroy them.



I cleaned it all up, checked all the threads, checked that the shaft was well lubricated, and slowly put it all back together. Some of the threads were standard clockwise, some were reveresed counter clockwise. Once I mastered which ones were which, it all went together well. I made sure to tighten completely the fitting that had come loose. It is working fine now.

I needed to trim up the wheel well lips to their appropriate width. After consultation with my mentors, it was decided that about a 5/16" to 3/8" lip seemed about right. They are supposed to be thin, so I opted for the 5/16". I used a square with a sliding base to lay a consistent 5/16" line onto the lip with a fine point sharpie pen. I slowly carved back the edge with long slow strokes of the die grinder until I achieved a nice, smooth edge. Then I laid in a smooth layer of HSRF filler to the back side of the lip. I will let "Da Bat" decided how he wants to round over and feather these edges together.





I drilled the holes for the rear lights. Nothing special there, by the book. I was going to drill the hole for the fuel inlet, however I do not have a 3.5" hole saw. I will tomorrow!!

[Dave Howard]

I used a belt sander with coarse 50 grit to get the front and rear roll over down to the required size. Pulled the body on the front lawn on a nice warm summer day and was done in 5 minutes. No mess in the garage

[Jazzman]

This week has gone by much too quickly! I talked to "Da Bat" on Monday or Tuesday. (I told you the week had gone quickly!) He confirmed he should be ready to begin my bodywork and paint in about 30 days. I quickly began making a laundry list of all the things I had to get done before I deliver the car to him. After putting it in priority order, I started working through it. The list is still too long, but I am slowly plowing through it. We shall see if I can get it all done in 30 days!

Remember last Friday when the welder did not have the time to weld up my roll bars because it was noon, they close at 2:30pm on fridays, and he now believed that my job was a three hour job? Monday morning at 5:55am I showed up at his shop. He didn't arrive till 6:05, but Ok, close enough I guess. By 6:25am he was finally ready to begin the job. He tacked the rear bar to the front one, then removed both from the car to finish the complete welding job. At 7:05am he was done with both roll bars. Job done in 40 minutes, not three hours! Oh well, they are done.





They will probably not get polished until the body is at "Da Bat Cave".

Since the hood was installed a week ago, the lowest end of the outboard elephant ears has been rubbing the exhaust headers. I decided I just could not ignore the problem, so I had to re-do my first works on the attachment points on the inside of the hood. I first used a hacksaw to cut a separation between the upper and lower section of the mounting rail. I heated up the bonding adhesive to make it release. Just a couple seconds with a torch was enough to loosen up the cement. Then I removed the lower end of the rail, being careful not to damage it because it will be reused. I cleaned up the aluminum, and sanded off the remainder of the adhesive on the inside of the hood.





I trimmed off 1/4" of the bottom of the hood so that it would slide right by the exhaust headers. I feathered that cut into the side of the hood creating a smooth transition. I used the same process to rebond the bottom section of the attachment rail that I had used origionally. I drilled holes through the body and used bolts and nuts to hold each piece in place while the adhesive sets up. I hope this is the last time I have to bond anything in this manner. I have enough of the two part bonding cement, but I only have one more mixing nozzle to go on the end of the caulk-like dispenser tube.



This time I was careful to set the attachment rail back from the edge of body to allow the elephant ear to nestle back into the hood to allow a smooth corner where it needs to slip by the exhaust headers.



I did buy a 3.5" hole saw to cut the hole for the fuel inlet. I spent a few minutes finding the center point of the available space, and drilled the hole. You know what? It looks like a hole! Its a fine hole, but not particularly photogenic. One more item checked off the list.

[Jazzman]

I have a number of body related items that i have to check off my list:

1. drill holes for both roll bars
2. drill holes to attach the body to the bottom of the frame, install rivnuts into each hole, and install bolts to hold the body in place.
3. Install the doors. See if they are even close to fitting.
4. Attach the trunk.

In order to do all these things, the body had to go back on the frame. My bride and I have gotten really good at installing and removing the body. It only took us about 5 minutes to get it back on there. Thankfully the hood meshed right back into the body, the gaps are the same as they were the last time it was installed. (most a bit too tight, the center of the hood at the rear perhaps just a bit too wide. I will let "Da Bat" deal with that if it becomes an issue.)





I had a bit of an issue with the PS hood latch attachment point. Because of the way it has to be attached, It has a tendancy to bend out of location. I am going to have to re-examine how it is attached and possibly make an adjustment to how it is attached. More on that later.

I adjusted the body and got it right where I wanted it to remain. I spent the rest of the evening trying to install rivnuts on the bottom of the frame. It shouldn't be that difficult a job. I have a good rivnut setting tool, but I only can get the body about 14 inches off the ground. This is just barely enough to allow the arms of the rivnut tool to swing together. I am drilling upward into the frame, but doing it with the drill only inches from the floor. There is just not a lot of leverage that can be applied that close to the ground. It only serves to reinforce my decision to get a two or four post lift before I do another project like this. There is not much to see because of where the rivnuts and bolts are installed. I put five pair of these into the PS frame, spaced equidistantly. It applies plenty of rigidity to the body on that side. I ran out of energy before I could attack the DS.

[carlewms]

Jazzman,

It has been awhile since I have been on the forum ... so I really enjoyed going back and catching up on your fine work.

Thanks for all the details.

Carl

[wareaglescott]

Looking good Kevin!
Clock is ticking on that color decision

[WIS89]

Kevin-

The details are coming together nicely! I know it is going to look great with some fresh color on her!

Not too much left to do before you make the trip to the Bat Cave. You must be stoked!

Thanks for the updates, and I look forward to seeing your choice of color(s).

Regards,

Steve

[Jazzman]

I look forward to seeing my color choice too!! If I only could make one!! Down to three combinations:

Candy Apple Red with Black Stripes
PPG Electric Blue Pearl with Ice White pearl stripes
Black Pearl with phantom silver stripes

I have found that polling my friends is useless. If I ask 10 friends what they like, I get 12 opinions!! However, you all are more attuned to this particular car. Want to place your vote? feel free. I will take any input I can get at this point!!

[Jazzman]

Installing the roll bars turns out to be a slow and tedious process. I took a lot of photos, likely more than you want to see. Since I can only include seven photos per post, This will be split up into a couple of posts.

Before the roll bars could be installed, I had to be sure that the body was fully attached and could not move. I installed rivnuts at five location on either side of the car so that I can us 1/4"x20 bolts to attach the body. Working underneath the car with only inches of additional space for the rivnut tool, it was a slow and difficult job. It is done, however.



I am installing twin roll bars. I like the look, and my wife threatened me that she had better get a roll bar or she wasn't riding in this rocket!! (I admit it, she intimidates me!!) I decided to use the 1.75" Breeze roll bars because a) I like the height and lay back better than the FFR originals, and b) in my humble opinion, the 1.5" FFR bar are too small a diameter. To my eye, they look a little spindly. Because of the different diameter, and the slightly laid back design, the original holes marked on the body are close, but are not in the right place. I talked to Mark at Breeze, and he said the holes for his bars needed to be just a little bit rearward of the originals. He said the outboard holes need to be 1/4" back from the orignial FFR mark, and the inboard holes should be about 3/8" back. It turns out he was pretty darn close. (I know, what a surprise!!)

I started by trying to figure out where to drill the outboard holes. I drew grid lines over the circles marked by FFR. I put a work light right on top of the gridlines, and looked at the underside of the body.



I used the tube from the roll of paper towels as a surrogate for the bar inself. I cut the roll off so it was long enought to reach the back side of the body. By looking from the bottom of the body, I could line up the tube and identify where on the grid lines I should cut the hole. This worked quite well for the fore/aft location, not quite so well on the left/right side orientation. I could only see the tube from the side of the car, not the from the back. I went back to the top and drew on an approximate circle using the points i had identified from the underside. Using the motto "check twice, cut once", I checked three times to be sure I had lined it up. I then used the 1.75" hole saw to cut the hole. I used the long adapter pipe that actually goes on the rear leg to go down through the hole to see if my hole lined up with the angle of the attachment pipe on the frame. I measured the distance from the frame to the body, and factored in the lenght of the un-bent section of the roll bar. It appeared that the outside legs of the roll bars will actually go straight into the frame mounted fitting. The bend occurs almost exactly where the leg will go through the body. Therefore, the hole should be straight above frame mounted attachment point.

It turns out that I had to use a barrel sander attached to my drill to open up the hole and move it inboard, toward the side wall of the trunk. I have decided to use the trim rings around the outside of the roll bars. Now that I am in the process of installing them, I am really glad I made this decision. I gives you a good amount of room for error. Without the trim rings, you have to be perfect on all six holes! I am one hole in, and It is also crystal clear that I am not going to be perfect on even one hole!! I used the trim ring as a template to see how far I could open up the hole and still have the trim ring fully cover the hole. This worked very well. It took many iterations of 1) slde the pipe into the hole, 2) mark where the hole needs to be enlarged, 3) remove pipe, 4) sand the inside of hole up to the marks you made, 5) repeat. When the first hole was done, it turned out that the left/right alignment of the FFR mark was about 1/8" inboard of correct, and 1/4" forward of the correct location. Pretty close to Mark's 1/4" prediction. I repeated this process for the outboard hole on the DS. Two holes down, four to go.

I made the assumption that the Frame mounted mounting points are in a straight line. It had appeared that way to me, but it was an assumption at this point. (It turned out to be a correct one.) Now that I have two correct, fixed points, I used string to mark points where the other two, inboard, holes had to go.



It turned out that these points put the inboard holes about 1/2" back from the original FFR marks. I used a similar method of placing marks on the top of the body, placing a worklight about it, and confirming the location from the bottom with a paper towel tube.



More measure twice, mark the body, be sure it is right.



I cut the first inboard hole and began the process of making sure the front legs slid smoothly through the holes. This involved multiple iterations of install/mark/remove/sand/repeat.



I wanted to be sure that the front legs were going to fit without binding before I began working on the rear leg hole. This is when I confirmed that I had to deal with another issue before I could move forward with installing the roll bars.

[Jazzman]

When I installed the roll bars without the body, I found they required a lot of heavy pulling to bend them slightly to fit over the frame mounts. Now that I am trying to work under the body, that pulling process is much more difficult, perhaps impossible. I had to bend the roll bars so that they naturally fit onto the frame mounting points. All I needed to do was to bend stainless steel about 1/8" to 3/16". Easy . . .right?

My superhuman strenght is waning, so I needed some mechanical leverage. I pulled out two bar clamps laying them in opposite directions on my bench. I placed hooked the screwed ends over the ends of the bench. The opposite ends of the clamps were adjusted so that they fit just inside the legs of roll bar. I place wood pads next to the bars and soft cloths over the bar clamps so as not to damage the roll bars.





I measured the width of the legs before I began bending them apart from each other.



It I didn't want to bend them too far, so I cranked down the screw of the bar clamp to move the legs about 1/2" at a time. This 1/2" stretch seemed to actually bend the bar about 1/16" after the tension was released. I tested the bar to see if it would now fit. Nope, I had to repeat the process two more times. On the third time the legs slipped effortlessly onto the frame mounted points.



Now i can move on to the rear legs and the holes they will go through. The adapter pipe for the rear leg has to be slipped up into the rear leg before th bar is set into place. There is no room to install it from the underside. Yesterday when I was preparing to do this, I made the mistake of sliding the adapter pipe too far up into the rear leg. I could not pull it out. I finally got it to slide out after using some WD-40 sprayed between the two pipes and pulling with a hooked tool on the bolt hole that will ultimately attache the adapter to the frame attachment point. I did not want to repeat this mistake again. I drilled a hole for a 1/2" long self tapping metal screw. I put it on the back side of the pipe so it will not be seen when permanently installed. I put a screw into the hole. This will keep the adapter pipe from sliding too far into the rear leg of the roll bar, and it will keep the adapter pipe from sliding too far down the frame mounting tube until I want to permanently attach the roll bars. Two problems killed with one solution!

[Jazzman]

I learned a lot cutting and shaping the DS rear leg hole. Short version: the hole is cut, the roll bar fits, and trim ring will completely hide the fact that the hole is just a bit wider than it should be because I had to sand it in multiple directions. Rather than bore you with all the minor mistakes I made learning how do to it right, I am going to fast forward to the PS rear leg where I used all that I had learned on the first one.

I set the PS roll bar into place in the front two holes. (This one didn't need any bending to fit correctly.) I pushed it down on the forward frame tubes just far enough so that the rear leg touched the body. I used a square to draw marks on the body directly below the outside edges of the bar at the point where the rear leg will have to pass through the body. the mark at the very tip of the rear leg is important because that will move straight down. The hole you cut must allow the very tip of the rear leg to slide through. That is why that rear mark appears to be so far away from the bar.



I removed the roll bar, and then used the trim ring as the template to draw the hole needed. The edges of the hole are supposed to pass directly through the marks made on the body in the previous step.



Clearly the rear leg will go through the same general area that FFR had marked, but it was further aft and outboard than FFR's marks would have indicated. (This is the problem I ran into on the DS!) I used the hole saw to cut out the center area, then used the barrel sanders to complete the opening to it's indicated size. I intentionally left the hole smaller than the maximum size of the trim ring. If I was off a bit, I still had some material to remove to correct the opening before I ran out of space under the trim ring. I think I had to install and remove the bars three times to mark and adjust the openings so everything would fit just right. It is finally done! Both bars are installed!!



Thats a big one off the to-do list!!

[edwardb]

Nice job on the Breeze roll bars. They give a good look for all the reasons you mentioned. Ingenious idea on adjusting the spread with bar clamps. Haven't seen that before. I stuck mine in my floor jack with some blocks of wood. That worked too but you're right it takes a lot of spread to make a small amount permanent. Looks like you have your cut-outs nice and tight. You mention repeatedly you have the trim rings to cover up the gap. True enough but not the outer edge. There needs to be some body underneath the mounting holes for the bolts holding them on. Looks like you'll be fine. I assume the holes in the roll bars are for third brake lights? Nice.

[Jazzman]

There needs to be some body underneath the mounting holes for the bolts holding them on. Looks like you'll be fine. I assume the holes in the roll bars are for third brake lights? Nice.

Yes, there is still plenty of body underneath where the trim rings will go. Thanks for the comments on the holes in the roll bars. Yes, those are the i.e.427 lights. Frankeski did a great job on them. I can't wait to see them installed. That will have to wait until after the bars are polished and the body is painted.

A client and friend of mine who is also an avid car restorer has an excellent relationship with a gentleman who owns an automotive paint supply house. My client has received wise counsel from this gentleman on paint selection on all of the dozen and a half or so cars he has restored. My friend is going to introduce me to this expert in hopes he can help me select the specific colors I seek. I watched several episodes of "Overhaulin'" today while I was working in the shop. I love what Chip Foose does! He talked a little about his paint colors, and the fact that he has a line of BASF colors he has specifically chosen. I went to the BASF website and found the colors. They are all really beautiful. Chip did a promo video for the BASF paints while he was at SEMA a couple of years ago. He talked about how he may spend months considering what color to paint a car, then do dozens of sprayouts to get just the right color. If it takes an expert like Mr. Foose that long to pick a color, I don't feel quite as bad. I don't, however, have his budget for dozens of sprayouts! He also said he waits until the car tells him what color it is supposed to be painted. Apparently my car is either obstinate or mute, speaks a language I do not, or I am not listening!

I checked a lot of small items off the punch list today, but not much that is photo worthy:

1. I trimmed up the front wheel wells to match the rear ones.
2. I installed the trunk lid and latch system according to the FFR manual. I did not trim the trunk, though it clearly needs it. I have left the doors and trunk to Mr. Miller to trim out.
3. I reinstalled one of the fuel line straps that had gotten bent up slightly in the ill-fated trailer debacle. No damage to the fuel line, just easier to get at the straps now while the car is up off the ground.
4. I received a package of proximity switches from Watson's Streetworks. They are nice magnetic switches that are designed to be installed into the door frame. and edge of the door. Unfortunately, since the door frame and the edge of the door don't really meet in the conventional way on these cars, the switches have to go back.
5. I used up the last of my HSRF filling in the back side of the wheel well edges. Unfortunately, I have one more wheel well to go. Oh Amazon $.$.$.
6. I trimmed the body around the exhaust pipes to provide enough clearance.

I still have to deal with the PS attachment point for the hood latch, specifically the 2" square U-bolt to which the latch attaches. It is only threaded up each leg to within about 1" of the top of the "U". I need it to be threaded all the way to point where the 90 degree turn begins.



I need to install a nut on the outside of the PS footbox sidewall before the U-bolt goes through the aluminum sidewall and the steel stiffening plate.



I have not found anywhere to buy a 2" Square U-bolt, size 3/8x16, that is threaded right to the very end of each leg. I have a die to thread that size bolt, but the only die wrench I have cannot be used because the handles will hit the u-bolt leg that is not being threaded at that moment.



I finally found what just might work: a hex die of the same size. I can use an open end box wrench to turn the die around the bolt, and re position the wrench whenever necessary so as not to hit the other threaded leg. I ordered the die ($6, not too much downside here!) and will try it when it arrives. More on that later.

Lesson to be learned: Do not sand off the marks where the holes for the windshield are supposed to go through. I am not quite sure how I will figure out where the holes should go.



"Da Bat" said he could relocate them and cut them, but I would really like to have them cut before I deliver it to him. He will have enough to do!!

[Jazzman]

Under normal circumstances, the front overriders and/or bumper are attached through the body to the frame by 3/8" bolts. However, when you decide to do a Flip Top your overriders or bumper cannot be attached to the frame. They need to be attached to the body only. Under the best of circumstances they are decorative and not particularly functional. When only attached to the fiberglass body, they really become decorative only. They need to be solidly attached, but there is no metal to attach them to. If I were to do it again, I might see about building an attachment to the trusses that would also provide a metal attachment point for the bolts for the overriders and bumpers. The trusses are all powdercoated. It is too late to make such a modification on this build. I have to figure another method.

I realized that I did not have a method to attach the overriders when I was trying to adjust the hood relative to the body. My seam at the center top of the hood is wider than the space at the outside edges at the top. The side seam at the bottom is also wider toward the rear than it is at nearer the front. It is not too significant, certainly nothing that cannot be fixed by "Da Bat". I just want to get all the lines as straight as I can before I deliver the car to him. Looking for how to tighten up the seams led me to realize that without the bolts at the front holding the nose of the hood, the entire nose of the car sits about 3/8" too low. Frankly you would never notice it if all the seams were straight. It is too subtle for the eye to see. I am still debating if it is worth the effort to raise the nose that 3/8". It could involve making some of the attachment holes more oval so that the hinge mechanism can be slid upward. It might also involve remaking and re-powder coating a couple of pieces, relocating slightly several holes to raise them up.

This brings me back to how and where to attach the overriders. The basic design provided by 2BKing is to carve a foam box to fit into the space behind where the bolts would go through and cover it in 4-6 layers of fiberglass for strength. It sounds simple enough, but this a very complex curved area to work in.



I began by gluing up two 3" thick blocks of structural foam 6" long.





I used this tool to try to get a the shape of the space. I took measurements horizontally and vertically. I transferred the shape to the blocks of foam to get an idea of where I was going.





I set to work with a knife to cut away some of the excess, then worked the blocks down more with the sanding station.





After trying to form both foam cubes, attempting to carve them to fit the curves of the hood, I remember why I always hated trying to learn to carve from my father. He is quite good at it. I am not. The foam blocks fit, but are surely not a nice fit. I could bond the blocks to the hood with HSRF, allowing the HSRF to fill the spaces that are not correctly formed. I might do that. I might make one more attempt to carve the foam blocks. Or perhaps I can come up with an alternative method of forming the foam box. Gonna sleep on it.