CABulldogs mk4 #10323

[CABulldog]

Hello all, I am James and I have started working on a Mk4 Roadster. I have long dreamed of building a kit car, starting with a Robin Hood Engineering Lotus 7 Replica (Cheaper than a Caterham) and evolving along the way. My other big dream was to own a front engined rear wheel drive V8 car, with that love being started by the TVR’s of the 90’s such as the Chimera and Cerbera. Move forward many years and the heart still yearns for such things, but now I have the finances and a little boy who loves cars. I wanted to get a vehicle I could work on with him and teach him some stuff. So options were explored and I came up with 2 buy an older muscle car from the mid 2000’s or build a factory five. I love the look of the cobra and it offers what I was looking for in many ways. My first real exposure to the Cobra was seeing one driving into the office site I interned at most days. You could hear that thing coming, I never talked to the lady that drove it so I don’t know if it was real or not but I loved watching and listening to that car. Well when I put the options to my then 5 year old kid build or buy he wanted to build. I met up with a group of Cobra owners/builders for breakfast and started to plan out the order. I knew I wanted a complete kit and IRS but the rest I was open to. Well on Sept 9th 2021 I placed an order for a complete kit with the following

Complete kit
Unfinished frame
Hydraulic clutch
Leather Seats
Front and Rear swaybars
Bumpers (I love the look)
Wind wings
Sun visor
Brake duct mesh
Heater

I have also ordered a Blueprint 347 with fuel injection and the TKX transmission which I ordered on Jan 20th 2022

I have also opted to get
Breeze radiator mounts and shroud
Breeze vintage hood hinges
Breeze forward battery tray
Breeze storage cubby
Electric power steering
Gas N Touring Pipes
Russ Thompson Turn signal and drop trunk kit
Seat heaters
Boig cooling tubes

Well the kit was built in March, picked up by Stewart Transport and scheduled for delivery on April 1st. I live at the end of a court off a busy street, I did not think it was possible to get such a large truck down the street. Mark from Stewart proved me wrong, with me holding the traffic on the street he backed down the court like the pro he was, he had Ted G’s kit on him as well and was going there next.

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We unload all the boxes and kit #10323 is finally here. A buddy from breakfast came around and helped me remove my body and we talked about the frame modifications I am going to be doing, my mig welding skills were piss poor at high school, I think because the welding mask was so dark I could not see anything. I was able to weld with the oxy acetylene torch but nothing else. I am told that I should be able to master mig welding, it needs to work not look good.

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I complete the inventory and found I was missing several big items, including my pedal box assembly, 2 master cylinders etc. I emailed my list to Factory Five and after sending them pictures of box 22 they have shipped me the missing parts due to arrive soon. Factory five did not ask for the pictures just that I look again, I decided to send the pictures myself.

Once I completed inventory I started to remove the aluminium panels that were shipped on the car. I am starting by drilling and Clecoing all the aluminium panels first, then I will work with the frame modifications. Unfortunately my wife has been having some serious medical issues recently so that is slowing progress, I am getting 1 or 2 panels drilling and clecoed on a day right now. The plan is to get the frame mods done and most likely send it out for paint.

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I will save updates up as I make progress to log here, on a weekly or even monthly basis it should be clear the car is starting to make progress.

[John Ibele]

Welcome James and congratulations on signing up for a big adventure. It's always a kick to see kids involved. I'll look forward to your updates.

[CaptB]

I too had an unfinished frame delivered. After some cleanup I had it powder coated in metallic silver. What color are you thinking?

[CABulldog]

I was going to coat it black, most likely frame paint, maybe powdercoat.

[Ted G]

Welcome and I'll be following.

[JB in NOVA]

Welcome aboard! I'm looking forward to following your build.

[CABulldog]

This last week I have not had much time spent in the garage working on the car, this is fine as I expect there will be a lot of weeks where this is true right now.

The majority of the work this week has been drilling and Cleco’ing the aluminium panels to each other and the frame. I have managed to complete the passenger footbox, floor and door side panel. I had the missing in kit and some POL items arrive during the week so I inventoried them as well. I did not get the correct driver side footbox front but that arrived this week so I put that on as well. My son (6 years old) came out and helped me drill a few of the holes that would be needed.

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I am going to mount the radiator using the breeze upper and lower mounts. If using the radiator that comes with the kit then the 2 short bits of square tubing need to be removed. I did this and did a reasonable job grinding the metal back to the frame, it is not perfect but I think it will work. The second picture I took is it hard to see as I got closer this time I think.

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[Namrups]

What's your opinion on the MaxJax? Do you find it useful? Worth the money spent? Does it lift the car high enough? I'm trying to decide between a unit like yours or a full height 2 post lift.

Scott

[CABulldog]

What's your opinion on the MaxJax? Do you find it useful? Worth the money spent? Does it lift the car high enough? I'm trying to decide between a unit like yours or a full height 2 post lift.

Scott

I am happy with it so far, for me it was the only real option as I have a low ceiling, the biggest issue I have had so far is that I have it setup quite wide and lifting on the 4 inch tubes requires the arms to be close together. It does get plenty high for me, but then I will work on jack stands mostly and move it out of the way in the future when my new shed arrives and I have somewhere to put it. I have lifted my mini van to rotate the tires and the bed of my pickup with it as well.

James

[Ted G]

This last week I have not had much time spent in the garage working on the car, this is fine as I expect there will be a lot of weeks where this is true right now.

The majority of the work this week has been drilling and Cleco’ing the aluminium panels to each other and the frame. I have managed to complete the passenger footbox, floor and door side panel. I had the missing in kit and some POL items arrive during the week so I inventoried them as well. I did not get the correct driver side footbox front but that arrived this week so I put that on as well. My son (6 years old) came out and helped me drill a few of the holes that would be needed.

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I am going to mount the radiator using the breeze upper and lower mounts. If using the radiator that comes with the kit then the 2 short bits of square tubing need to be removed. I did this and did a reasonable job grinding the metal back to the frame, it is not perfect but I think it will work. The second picture I took is it hard to see as I got closer this time I think.

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Nice job and I too am painting my frame. I also removed those two small bits up front for the Breeze radiator mount. Looking forward to your build as our chassis are sisters or at least close cousins.


Ted

[CABulldog]

This past week I made some slow progress on the aluminium sheet panels. I now have both side floors in and cleco’d in place, along with the drivers footbox front wall and side wall. I have placed the u join cover and will move next to the rear corners of the cockpit.

The 2 floors where they come up to the transmission tunnels on the rear do sit high, I can put pressure on the rear of each floor and get them flush so I am going to have to make them flush and cleco them in place until it is time for the tunnel top to be put in which I plan to do with Rivnuts to make removal easy in future for maintenance needs on the gearbox. I did do some grinding to help make the floors fit a little better. I also cleaned up the grinds on the front as I had actually purchased the correct grinding discs and was not using the cut off wheel as I was before.

I think given the slow progress I am making in a couple of weeks I will have all the aluminium work complete that can be done before the body is mounted. I will then move on to roughing in the suspension so I can take some measurement with the body on ready for the frame mods I am going to do.

I did notice yesterday that the windscreen assembly is now on its way to me so there is movement on the POL list but there is still more to come.

[CABulldog]

This week I had gotten a cold from my kid, so I have not spent much time in the garage working on the car, Sunday being mothers day we ended up in a suite at Oracle Park, which was a fun and enjoyable experience. This resulted in only a little work getting completed on the car, I did some work on the floor aluminium to secure it to the side of the transmission tunnel and trimming the amount I could not get any lower.

As I am planning on placing my handbrake on top of the transmission tunnel rather than in the default place I cut the bracket for holding it back, I did this in a way that I would still be able to replace it if at some point during the build I find the top mount to be impossible. I then used an old coke can box taped to the floor aluminium to trace out the hole for the original position handbrake. From that out line I created a template to cut out the aluminium to make the cover plate. I used the drivers footbox front wall for the doner pedals which I do not need for the aluminium for this cover, traced out the template and then cut using a cut off wheel. I quickly sanded off the edges of the new plate. I had drawn a line where I needed to make a 90degree bend in the metal, but I do not have a bending brake, and I did not feel it was worth even buying the harbor freight one (that may change) so I improvised and using my bench vise and a 2x4 I was able to make the bend, mainly by hand. The plate fit perfectly so I drilled the holes and cleco’d it in place. I have never been much of a metal fabricator but I am very happy with how it came out.

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[CABulldog]

Though I would update this thread quickly. Between the heat in the garage and the treatment my wife has been receiving I have had very little time to actually work on the cars, mostly when I have time I have been to exhausted to actually go out and do anything of much. Hopefully soon I can make some more progress, but this is not the worst thing for me as I then can get the POL stuff in and be ready to go when the time eases up a bit again.

[CABulldog]

It has been some time since I made any real progress on the car, I have started to get some made recently however. I met up with Russ Thompson to pick up my turn signal and drop trunk mod at breakfast recently, it was awesome meeting up with Russ and had a good time chatting. In the progress since the last update I have got all the aluminium panels in place for the drivers footbox, I riveted the side extension of the footbox as it does not need to remove as it is wholly contained in that panel and this just seemed better to me. I do think my silicon work needs to improve a little here. I have also started to put the panels in the trunk.

I then cut out the hole for the drop trunk kit and drilled and cleco’d the drop kit together. With the hole cut out I was able to mark the hole on the bars under the trunk. I am going to work on getting the rest of the panels in place and cleco’d in then I will start the cutting and welding to remove those bars (like what TedG did) and then test fit the drop kit.

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[toadster]

great to see your progress, where are you at in CA?

[CABulldog]

great to see your progress, where are you at in CA?

Only 6ish months late, I did just update my profile as well . I am in San Jose.

[CABulldog]

It has been a really long time since I did an update here (over 6 months) the work has been progressing slowly and surely and there have been some distractions along the way like the one below around thanksgiving.

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Following on from the last post, the next task was to start remembering how to weld with a mig welder. I am not going to post pictures, needless to say grinding is needed, a lot of grinding to make it look only awful. Not long after this my engine arrived from Blueprint, it is a 347 SBF making 411hp, this is perfect for my needs (at the moment).

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I then moved on with the trunk area. I want the drop trunk to be free of the cross bars so I started off by removing the existing bars where they interfere with the drop trunk. I used the hole I had made previously to make the bars where they were visible. I then cut beyond this to ensure there was no interference.

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I then added a new bar at the rear at the same height as the cross bars.

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I was then able to add a bar from the front to rear that joined the remaining cross bar.

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I then added the drop trunk aluminium to the lower trunk panel and clecoed it all together. Once this was done I went on and did the same for all the trunk aluminium, and the rest of the cockpit aluminium.

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[CABulldog]

Next I started to work on the transmission tunnel. I wanted a front mounted shifter and to place the handbrake up there as well, to do this I modified the frame to have room for both but still have some stiffness to it as well. I will get a picture of this for the next update as well.

The next step was to install the front and rear control arms and suspension, mount some tires on the wheels and put the car on to her wheels for the first time. Some guys from the local cobra club came round and helped me to put the body on for this. The purpose here is to allow me to check the clearances of all the aluminium panels with the car as close to the end fit as possible. Thankfully all the aluminium fit nicely and there has been no trimming needed.

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The next steps will be the final frame mods I am currently working on then striping back to the clear frame and having it painted and the panels powder coated. I have considered powder coating the frame but I feel paint is the right direction for me, it has been a hard choice. I will post details of the mods I am currently working on once they are complete

[CABulldog]

Well after reading Ted’s post about the updated latches and the fix from factory five and having a chassis that is close in numbers and delivered the same day on the same truck I figured I would have the same issue. I went a took a look and figure I do have the issue. I re-read Ted’s post and then finding the facebook video post from factory five I decided I also did not like the idea of the fix that factory five offers. So this weekend I set out to create my own solution inspired by Ted.

Like Ted I wanted something that looked like it was intended, but unlike Ted my frame has not been painted yet. In that vain I decided I would like to weld my new latch plates. I also wanted to the latches to be adjustable from the very original to 3/8 ‘s of an inch further in from the original. The video I found on factory five’s facebook page had a car that 1 side did not need the fix and 1 side did.

So I ordered some wood and metal close to the same thickness. The wood arrived on Saturday, I know you are wondering why I need wood for a weld on plate, well read on it becomes clear. I have in my garage a cool machine called a Shapeoko which is a CNC machine, I have only ever used it to cut wood, and although Shapeoko say it can only do aluminium it is possible to cut steal as well, this will be my first try. So this weekend I wanted to create the GCode so cut out the new bit of plate from the steel.

I started by taking a photo of the current plate and using a simple paint program cleaned up a black and white image. I imported this into Carbon Create which took the out line for me. From there I measured the size of the plate and scaled the outline. I then setup tabs and the cutting options and generated the GCode for a copy of the original. The CNC went to work cutting it out of the wood (cheaper and less damaging if I make a mistake). I removed the original template and compared it to the original plate on the car, the match was almost perfect (not quite).

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Next I edited my block and white image to extend the plate by ⅜’s of an inch, and repeated the process as for the original. I made the cut in wood again and the new plate looks like it will fit perfectly. Once welded and the welds clean up the new plates will be perfect. I will make sure I take a little paint of the back of the plate once the final adjustments are made and tack the pole (whatever it is called) in place so it can not move easily.

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I will update when I have been brave enough to put my expensive machine through cutting the material it is not suppose to be able to cut. Hopefully with the image of the new plates.

[danmas]

...
So I ordered some wood and metal close to the same thickness. The wood arrived on Saturday, I know you are wondering why I need wood for a weld on plate, well read on it becomes clear. I have in my garage a cool machine called a Shapeoko which is a CNC machine, I have only ever used it to cut wood, and although Shapeoko say it can only do aluminium it is possible to cut steal as well, this will be my first try. So this weekend I wanted to create the GCode so cut out the new bit of plate from the steel.

...
I will update when I have been brave enough to put my expensive machine through cutting the material it is not suppose to be able to cut. Hopefully with the image of the new plates.

Let me know how this goes. I have a shapeoko as well, although haven't done any metal cutting either.

[CABulldog]

Let me know how this goes. I have a shapeoko as well, although haven't done any metal cutting either.

Will do, I decided to add an air blower system before I make the cut so that I can remove the chips as it is working as I don't think using the vacuum attachment will help in this case.

[facultyofmusic]

I gotta admit that I wish I did this with my trunk. The diagonal bars going across the drop-trunk bothers me more than I thought it would.

[CABulldog]

I can report back that indeed the Shapeoko CNC machine I have (Shapeoko Pro XL) will happily machine carbon steel. I was able to cut out 4 plates (2 for Dan (facultyofmusic)). The end results look nice, I left 3 tabs and was able to cut them out with the dremel (used alot of the cut of wheels to do). I sanded the extra tabs off and then using the dremel with a sanding disc just smoothed off the edges.

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I did however learn that the endmill I was using I had setup the wrong parameters, I destroyed 2 of the endmills, which was not a big problem as I had 5 and they were only about $5 each. I was running them to fast with too much depth of cut. The next steel cutting job I have I will tune the settings to the end mill makers recommendations. I did have an air system that was misting a lot of cutting fluid. This helped a lot as well. I am happy with the result, now to cut the old ones off and weld on the new.

[CABulldog]

The last 4 months have been a very difficult time in my house which has led to work on the car being slow and sporadic. My wife went in for surgery to remove a lot of the cancer that she has been fighting, this surgery was the last major option to potentially extend her life significantly. Unfortunately the surgery was unsuccessful as the surgeon found the cancer was too integrated with other tissue which they can not remove. Her recovery from that (which was a week long stay at Stanford hospital) was complicated by our son getting covid which meant we had to isolate from her and she had to go to her parents house after being discharged. The kid got over covid with no major issues but then returned to school and picked up a different virus a few days later. My wife had to go back into hospital with an infection for another week, but recovered as we finally able to return home for a time until the infection came back and she had to go in again. She is now starting to get to the point where she is able to do things for herself again but I have needed to be the person to look after them both. This has resulted in less time to work on the car and honestly less desire and energy to do so as well. That said I have slowly been working on the car so here is an update of all the stuff I have been doing since Feb, I am going to write this up more in the order I remember the items than the strict order I did them in.

I created and welded in an additional cross brace just behind the seats. This brace (it maybe visible in some the pictures below) has been placed to provide more support for the read cockpit wall to allow my fat arse to push up on that area to get in and out with less flex in the aluminium. The hard part here was that I did this all with the body on. This allowed me to space the rear cockpit wall to the body and then tack weld the cross bar in. Once the body was off I finished welded and tried to clean up as much as I could.

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I removed the body on my own which in not something I would ever recommend that anyone try to do. Seriously it is possible but just such a bad idea it is not funny. I had straps and all sorts to try and make it possible. Once the body was back off I then created another cross bar that goes on the front by the firewall to make the fire wall stronger. I put an upright in the same place as the factory upright for this new bar and made rivet mounting points along the top to secure the firewall to the cross bar. Finally I made a plate in the center between these to bars that will serve as a location to mount the rear view mirror to rather than just on the fiberglass.

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Next a couple of buddies came around and helped me to test fit the motor in to the frame, the purpose of this was to determine the final location of the gear shifter and the handbrake so that I could ensure fit and if there were going to be any obstructions. I put a seat into the frame climbed in and tested the locations. This turned out to be vital as I had welded a cross into the place where the handbrake needed to be so I had to adjust those adjustments. I removed the bar that was in the way and added a new cross support. I then welded on a couple of bolts to secure the handbrake on to. The final step of this was to attach string to the handbrake and run it through the factory brake cable holes to determine if it would operate well. I hung some weight to the other end of the string and everything seems to line up and function well so no mods needed there. While there I clean up some previous work that I felt I could have done better (still not perfect but live and learn for next time.

Next on to a fun thing. I wanted to make some heat shields for the footboxes, I figure a reasonable coverage was needed but it did not need to be a custom designed shape just a square that would screw on. I took some measurement and then designed something to cut on the CNC. I designed it with 9 screws (again something to learn from 4 is more likely enough). I cut out a test piece and it looked like it fit both sides well. I used it as a drilling template on the drivers side while the 2 aluminium shields were cut out on the CNC. This did not work very well and some of the holes had to be redrilled. Fortunately the holes were close enough the next step resolved the problem. Once I had the height shields in place with screws nuts and spacers I JB welded the nuts to the inside of the footbox aluminium, I did try and clean up the jb weld but I wanted to have captive nuts here as installing and removing these would be a bear. I will need to loctite these into place, I am hoping blue with do but am concerned with the heat it may not be enough.

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[CABulldog]

I have heard several people say that it would be best to have the dash screws accessible while the body was on and the normal mounting location makes this hard. I decided that it would be best to therefore add tabs on to the bottom of the upper dash support cross brace. I lined up the dash as per the instructions which meant it was too high to actually put gauges in such as the rev counter. I adjusted the position until this would clear, this is obviously as high as I can make the dash, so it should be good but in hindsight another job to do with the body on. Anyway I wanted 5 tabs to screw into but I only put 3 on to the existing bar, the center one I made interfered with one of the gauges so I cut it off a little for clearance (test fitting gauges to verify of course). I welded these tabs in place. I wanted the side screws to be further out than the existing metal allowed. I figured I could go an inch or 2 out on each side and not effect the bends that need to be put in place (they may have to be tighter than expected) so I got out the coke case cardboard I use from template material and drew a shape that I felt would work for what I wanted, put it into place and made adjustments. I used this to make 2 tabs and welded them on to the end of the square tube. To locate the tabs I had made measurement of the dash to determine the center and the sides so I was able to place them in positions that made them look like there were though out not just plonked on (I was thinking of the look of the screws when completed). I then drilled holes into the approx center of the tabs (again measured out) and drill this hole through the tabs. Finally I mounted the dash with #6 screws and nuts. I again wanted to have captive nuts to that it is not a problem to fit them so I put a couple of tack welds on to each nut.

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Finally I got to the part I was dreading cutting off the door latch plates and welding on the new ones I had made in my last post. This went better than expected and other than the poor welding I can not grind down the look like they were meant to be there.

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I have also removed all the aluminium before a lot of the welding was done to finalize the frame. This aluminium has all been cleaned up with brake clean and yesterday was delivered to the powder coaters. I have been working on cleaning up some surface rust and other stuff on the frame with steal wool and mineral spirits (not the best choice of cleaner as it leaves an oil residue) to be ready for paint. I have a small area left that I will need to get to soon as the frame is book in next friday for painting.

At the end of last year we traded our travel trailer in on a 5th wheel. This is an awesome new trailer but it lives in a storage yard a few miles from our home. The last trailer I was able to enter in the storage yard as it had the older style steps (I added the morryde step above after), the new trailer only had the morryde with assist steps which do not remove, due to this fact I decided I need to rent the space next to that trailer to make getting in and out possible (I am not able to bring that trailer home to park on the street so all trip prep has to happen at the storage yard). I was able to finally get 2 spots next to each other and having an empty storage spot allowed me to justify buying a new 20ft car hauler trailer, I picked it up a few weeks ago from Live Oak, CA (only a few miles north of where a lot of cobra’s get painted in this part of the world), this will make getting the frame to the painter easier and then any trips to the track or longer trips (Huntingdon Beach maybe) or other places easier.

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I am looking forward to getting the frame back from paint and then getting stuck into the real build process where parts go on to hopefully never come off again (fingers crossed).

[rx7922]

any update?

[CABulldog]

I realize it has been over a year since I last updated this thread. Work has happened but it has been very slow. To get into the personal life side that I referred to in my last posting. At the end of last August I had surgery on my left wrist to fix my Keinboch’s disease, they removed the lunate bone and fused 2 other bones together. As such I ended up in a cast or splint until November where I was finally allow to lift more than 1 pound. Since last summer my wife had spent an increasing amount of time in the hospital her cancer was progressing and was causing more and more issues for her. I obviously prioritized her and my son and honestly it was a very stressful time. After the new year her health declined very rapidly to the point where the oncologist and her medical team decided to end treatment in March. She came home for the final time at the beginning of April and passed away near the end of April. Most of this year I have had little interest in working on the car or in the garage. In the time since the last update I have managed to get some work done however. In no particular order.

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I got the frame back from paint and it looked great. I started by installing the front and rear suspension and brakes, I had upgraded to a full SVT cobra brake setup with EBC components. This all went mostly smoothly, I got the arms, the shocks and the breaks all in place and roughly where the manual stated to put them. The car will need an alignment of course.

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A couple of guys (thanks to Tim, Chin, and Danny) came around and helped me to fit the rear diff, and I put the vent into place on the frame afterwards.

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Next I put the steering rack in, I have the manual rack as I had opted to use the EPowerSteering system. Once breakfast morning I was talking to SJDave about the power steering and he showed me his setup of the same kit. He told me he would help me once I was ready. Recently I was actually ready to sort out the power steering kit so SJDave made me the brackets and came around to help me cut and fit all the components, his work is excellent and everything is solid and looks like it is suppose to be there. I have added automotive connect pigtails to the wiring using the solder link butt joints (I love those). I had another local builder who is awesome at TIG welding weld up the couplers for me and he clean up my awful tack welds, they look so good. Thanks Mike.

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I cut out the firewall where the heater is going to be located and I just need to install the box at the point. I also mounted the aluminium for the footboxes and f panels leaving the sides only cleco’d in at the time. For the drivers foot box I also left both top panels cleco’d in as well to help with the pedal box. I also installed the front battery box.

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I started to work on a way to make my e brake cables work with the location of my e brake. I made some brackets to bolt in under the rear battery tray. These turned out to cause a lot of issues with length and rubbing on the frame. I finally broke a bit that was used to connect the e brake to the cables trying to get it to where I wanted it. I looked at the issue some more and realized I can make a lever system and reuse the original locations for the cable. The benefit of this system is I can make it adjustable to movement so I can get a good pull on the e brake to hold the car on hills and stuff. The downside is I need to know my clearances to the gearbox so it is on hold until the engine and transmission is in place.

I have started to build the pedal box now and will look to have that in place in the near future. I am going to hold off from mounting the fluid reservoirs until the engine is in place so I can plan on a good place for them to be. I also will not run the clutch hydraulic lines until the engine and trans are in place. So the next jobs will be, finish the pedals, run the brake hard lines, run the brake soft lines, setup and install the fuel tank, filter and hard lines to the engine bay. Once I have all of that done I will be working on the electrics. I want to get the main of the wiring harness in place with most of the changes I will need before I fit the engine or most of the other panels as due to my requirements for passing the UK IVA I will need to do some interesting things and will most likely need an Arduino to help that (control of rear fog lights for example). As I will have that board in place I will do some fun things with the billet buttons I have for the car as well. More on that as I do it.

[egchewy79]

so sorry to hear about your wife's passing.
I hope you and your son get the peace that you need.
These projects can easily sit for a while when life gets in the way.
I'm glad to see that you're back at it. I find that wrenching can be pretty therapeutic to get your brain off other things.

[Blitzboy54]

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. That is a terrible thing and completely understandable why you would lose interest. I hope you find some peace in the project. Good luck and Gods speed.

[JohnK]

Hi James. I'm so sorry to hear about your wife's passing. What a terrible loss.

[CABulldog]

Thanks to all for the wishes about my wife, it has been hard losing her but I am starting to really enjoy the build again. As evidenced by this update I had planned to do this over the coming weekend but I could not wait.

I got the pedals mounted on to the frame, I also mounted the Breeze accelerator pedal I got just after they introduced them to the market. I then grabbed a seat and put it in the car and got in to test pedal clearance for my feet in the shoes I normally wear.

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As you can see I mounted the brake pedal centrally and the clutch to the far left. This left my right foot hitting the brake when going for the pedal in a mostly comfortable driving position for me.

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I adjusted the brake pedal full left and now I have plenty of clearance for the accelerator in the kizik shoes. I might still try other shoes such as mentioned in the pedal spacing thread, but these will work for me.

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[CABulldog]

So this weekend I finish setting up the pedal box by getting the master cylinders mounted on to the brake and clutch pedals. I have not run any lines yet, I am going to run the supply lines once I have decided where I am going to place the reservoirs which I will do after the engine is installed. Running the hard lines will be done soon. I also managed to get the pedals into an initial starting position with the switches making contact I found I could not get the brake pedal switch to be in a perfect position so I replaced one of the bolt things with a washer and that got it about right.

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I then moved on, first I quickly mounted the heater box to the firewall. I then moved on to the fuel tank. I had managed to get some dents in to the tank flange not sure how. Any way I using a Pro M fuel hanger so I got that out and made the modifications to the tank that the instructions asked for. I then assembled the hanger and pump. I found it very hard to get the soft fuel line on the the pump by managed it in the end. I used the rubber sock to keep the pump in place, I figured that is what it was for. I started out by putting male connectors on the pump to connect to the wiring harness but I was not happy with the result. In the end I decided to use the solder butt connectors I have (which I love) for it instead, should be a much more reliable connection. I gave the pump a quick test outside of the tank to ensure it and the wiring worked. I then put the hanger, vent and sender unit into the tank. I attached the filler hose as well.

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I then moved the tank to the rear of the car and lifted it to put it in place. It was here I realized that some of the dents in the flange were getting in the way of mounting the tank so I put it back down on the floor and gently persuaded the dents out. I found that no matter what I could not make the passenger side bolt meet the strap. I have placed an order at McMaster Carr for new longer bolts as if I had to drop the tank when the body is on I would rather have a lot of threads than an impossible to make fit bolt. I am waiting on those bolts to finish the installation.

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I finalized the weekend of work by installing the filter, I placed it quite far forward as it would have been impossible for me to fit the tools in there otherwise. I figure a long run of soft fuel line is no big deal. The hanger fittings are AN6 type I believe so I will need to make some anyway.

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[weendoggy]

James, usually the down-leg off the chassis will ride right on the lip seam of the tank. Have you tried flattening the seam a bit straighter to see if the tank will go higher? Or, is the top of the tank hitting the frame.

[CABulldog]

Hi Weendoggy,

Both sides have that lip like that in the place where the straps go, I figured it was supposed to be like that. I can lower the tank and flatten both. The rear side do sit on the seem which is why I flatted that side. I will give it a go, if not I have the longer hardware coming.

[weendoggy]

Hi Weendoggy,

Both sides have that lip like that in the place where the straps go, I figured it was supposed to be like that. I can lower the tank and flatten both. The rear side do sit on the seem which is why I flatted that side. I will give it a go, if not I have the longer hardware coming.

The strap area can be "bent" but the tank-to-downleg of the frame should be flat (horizontal) so the leg sits on the flat seam. Might have to tweak the tank to suit your chassis. I did it on mine with my new tank recently.

[CABulldog]

The strap area can be "bent" but the tank-to-downleg of the frame should be flat (horizontal) so the leg sits on the flat seam. Might have to tweak the tank to suit your chassis. I did it on mine with my new tank recently.

I went in last night and made the adjustments and got the tank bolted in place. I guess I have more returns for McMaster Carr