Battery cable completion

This week, I managed to finish off the battery cables. I ran the cables a very long time ago from the rear of the car, where the battery will eventually sit. Now I was ready to cut them to the exact length and solder on the ends which will connect to the starter and the frame for grounding. Cutting was not too big a deal; quick work with the cutoff wheel.

The kit had not come with the necessary lugs that get soldered (or crimped). Not sure why. Anyway, a long time ago I bought 3 of them, though I only needed 2. I bought one at a Old Dog hot rod shop, but that was the only one they had. Later I went to Auto Zone and they only sold them in pairs. So I ended up with 3. Since I had an extra, I decided to use one and the short piece of cable that I cut off to practice my soldering technique and I am very glad I did. It took me a while to figure out exactly how hot to get things, how much solder to put in the cup, to learn not to twist the copper wires to make them go into the cup easier, how to do the heat-shrink process, etc.

Unfortunately, the 2 lugs that I got at Auto Zone were not as nice as the one I got at the specialty shop. The good one seemed to have a bigger cup to fill with molten solder, and a little bit bigger hole to push the cable into. I clamped the lug into a handheld vice, used my mini torch to heat the lug, inserted the solder into the cup when it was hot enough to melt, and shoved the cable into the cup. Here are 3 pictures I managed to get.





The last picture shows the finished product. You can see that the black wire has something of a neck between the lug and the main cable body (hidden a bit by the heat shrink). The red cable, with the good quality lug, is perfect and is probably the best quality work I have done on the whole car.

I also re-visited my headers this week. I had loosely put them in place a long time ago to be able to check clearances on things, but now it is time to think about putting the upper engine frame and the cockpit in place, so accessing the header bolts will be much more difficult. Sadly, I have come to realize that these headers are pretty crappy. Lots of other Hurricane builders have complained about these parts that came with the kit. They were special built, and may be a problem. I know the ports don't exactly match the gasket or the head ports. This may result in an exhaust leak, poor performance, backfiring, etc. Worst of all, I am having a devil of a time just getting them bolted into place. The pipes are just too big to get normal wrenches on the bolts, and in at least one case, there does not seem to be enough room to even get the bolt into its position to be tightened. I may have to do a little grinding or even buy something new. For now, I have bought some special "crow's foot" wrench heads and will see if I can get things tightened up as is.

Tiny bit of carwork done

This week, I managed to get a couple of things done. I buttoned up the transmission pan, torquing everything to 9.5 ft lbs. I also redid the safety loop, which turned out to be a pretty tough job. In the end, the loop is great, and it is tightened to final spec too. I determined that I need to redo the transmission fluid line connections, as they are tight but at a bad angle. The lines also still need to be completed, but I think that can wait til I work on putting the radiator and oil cooler in the front. I also removed some of the rustproofing paint so the ground will have better conductivity, but now I am thinking I may want to make that 3/8" instead of 1/4". I found my missing mini torch, so I can now finish off the battery lines, and I bought some dielectric grease to be used on some of this stuff. Nothing really was picture-worthy though. Oh, and I retrieved Dan Dog who escaped the garage while I was working and chased a car down the street.