Anyway, this week did not show too much progress on the decision to commit to doing this--real life interfered too much. Basically, I am at a point where the budget is constraining me on my engine and transmission choices. These two items are critical to the kit manufacturer in order to begin their fabrications. I am sure I can acquire the engine and transmission for the kind of price I want, but it involves other tradeoffs.
I can either go with an older used Ford V-8, the 5.0L, and put up with it having a lot more miles on it to begin with. Or I could go with a newer used modular engine that Ford has now, the 4.6L, but which makes for a significantly more difficult build. There seems to be a decent supply of acceptible used engines and transmissions on the market, some more conveniently located than others. Transportation costs will actually be very important.
I am playing phone tag with the guy that I was given by the Hurricane president as the best contact to solve the 4.6L issues. He is in Sedalia, MO. I am not too comfortable with such a small source of help. On the 5.0L, I have found a guy in Arnold, MO who has an auction going on Ebay on an engine with 54,000 miles and automatic transmission, both of which he says are in great shape. He owns a Guns and Ammo shop, so I won't argue. Hopefully, in the next couple of days I will get answers from both of those guys to be able to decide which way to go and hopefully place my order with Hurricane by the end of the week.
I have also done a little thinking about my necessary workspace. So right now, I am sitting in a chair in my garage. My neighbors, I'm sure, are looking at me even more suspiciously. The temperature is fine, pretty comfortable actually, especially once I rigged up a little electric fan that I had lying around. And the computer is working beautifully. I also took a bunch of "before" pictures of the garage and some storage areas that will need to get prepped before the kit comes. After 20 years, it is probably time to give some of the places a little cleaning.
I have a nice sized 2 car garage. (Picture is too dark, I know). Plenty of room, once the unused half is cleaned out. Much of that stuff will have to go to this storage shed and the inside of that is not too bad...
I will also need to store a lot of the parts I am not working on from the kit in out of the way places, like my 4th bedroom and my laundry room, both of which will need to be cleaned up a bit...
Perhaps the biggest challenge may be the overhanging paint storage area in my garage. The body buck I will have to build in order to store the fiberglass body while I am working on the chassis needs to roll over the car when I am not working on it, and I doubt I will be able to have the right clearance. So, I thought about parking the Volkswagen on the other side, which has no height issues but the length is an extremely close call and I won't absolutely know for sure until I can really test it after cleaning out the garage.
