Progress

I am making some progress again, despite having to wait on a bunch of very small parts that my kit from Hurricane was lacking. I sent an email to the new owner, Chris White a week ago, and I am hopeful of seeing a package from them soon.

Meanwhile, Paul Proefrock came by my house a week ago. He needed to verify some dimensions for his build. He is trying to do a special perfect alignment job on his car and wanted to check some measurements on mine for comparison. So after he did that, I had him check several things for me. It was extremely useful and just about everything was fine.

We did both agree that the steering rack needed to be redone. This was because he bushings that hold it in the proper place were not fully inserted into the frame because Hurricane sent me one with holes drilled for a manual steering rack instead of my power rack. I had opened the holes most of the extra half inch needed, and ground back the frame for the larger steering shaft housing, but just not quite enough. The Ackermann effect would have been wrong. So I ended up partially uninstalling the steering rack, enough to have clearance to fix the frame to properly accomodate the rack. Hard work, but now it is beautiful.

Next, I ran connected the emergency brake cables to the brake housing. I ran the cables and temporarily installed the handle, but until I get the missing clamps from Hurricane, I had to let that sit for now.

Finally, I tackled the most infamous part of the Hurricane kit, the fuel tank. It is affectionately known as Frankentank by other builders. Basically, the kit comes with a polyurethane tank that requires relocating the fuel filler neck and the vent tube to the other side. This means you have to seal off the existing holes and drill a new one on a bad surface on the other side. The worst part is blocking off the old holes. The tank comes with rubber gaskets that tend to leak, so I made my own cork ones and it require special fuel-safe sealant that is very messy. What makes it very difficult to work with is that there is a backing plate that you have to insert inside the tank and bolt the block off plate onto it. Holding that plate in place inside of the tank requires some real trickery, and in my case a good pipe cleaner. I just finished sealing it tonight and will have to wait and see in a day or two if it holds by filling the tank with water and seeing if it leaks. God, I hope it holds. That was not a fun job.

Color Question

I have 2 options for the color to have my engine block painted. Ford Blue, or Black. I also can choose black powdercoated valve covers or polished aluminum ones. In either case, they will be etched with the Keith Craft logo. The tentative plan is for the car to be a lightish blue with orange stripes. Please leave a comment with how you think I should go on the colors.

Budget be damned!!!

Today, I celebrated Sue's return home from the hospital by buying a brand new crate engine. My builder is Keith Craft, from Arkadelphia, AR. These guys build superb engines and have an impeccible reputation for quality and service.

My engine will be configured something like this. Mine will also have an alternator and a power steering pump and related bracketry. It should take from 4 to 6 weeks for them to build it.

I have been trying for over a year to find the perfect combination of good, low mileage, titled, used engine. While there were many available, none was perfect. In the end, it seemed better to spend the extra 5 grand up front and get a perfect, new engine rather than one that needed to be pulled from an existing car or modified significantly to perform the way I want. In a way, it is admitting defeat: that I could not find the right machine, or space and time to do the work on something old like my original plan called for. But what the hell, it is only money!

Not working right now

I am still not working on the car right now. Sue is still in the hospital trying to recover from her pancreatic tumor surgery. Everything went well enough, but the recovery is difficult.

Medic time, not mechanic time

Most of you probably know what sadness has been going on with my family. If not, look at my nephew's blog at Smackie the Frog since about July 27 and follow the posts.

On top of that, my girlfriend Sue has been and is still in the hospital. She was insulinoma (a small tumor on the pancreas, believed to be non-cancerous) and has also developed a bad gall bladder. Hopefully, the surgeons at Barnes will be able to take care of both problems in one fell swoop.

Anyway, not much is happening on the car front. I did acquire 2 brand new tires this weekend for the rear end. They are the same brand as the previous 4 I bought, Cooper Cobra GTs, except wider and brand new. Still have the stickers on them. I am not sure if I will put them on now, or wait until after I am legal and can really tear them up properly on some asphalt. I am also still running down leads on both crate and used engines/transmissions.

Maybe I should have gone for the soft top

Sue and I drove up to Madison, WI last weekend for a wedding. We took her Toyota Solara convertible up late Friday night and came back home Sunday. The weather was poor on Friday but gorgeous on Sunday. The result was that my face got completely sunburned, save for the outline of my sunglasses. The picture does not do it justice but I look totally raccoon-like.
Perhaps I should get a soft top afterall. Or a tight hat that won't blow off when driving the Cobra.

This week, I am still chasing down engine quotes and such. I did end up buying a used engine hoist and leveler from a local guy who advertised a garage sale last weekend on craigslist. They did not sell, so I gave him $80 for the hoist and another $10 for the leveler. And I managed to get it home by myself in Baba's RAV.
Here are some pics...





The DVD that I ordered last week came in, so I will be watching that on Thursday and then it will be up to Quincy again this weekend. I hope to order the tranny and engine next week when one of the bidding vendors gets back from vacation.

Brake lines

This week I did manage to squeeze in a couple of hours to actually work on the car. I roughed in the brake lines. They are a combination of 7 hard metal lines and about 5 flexible braided ones. All sorts of connectors are used to join them and connect them to the calipers. Since I am not finished, I do not have any pictures. Sorry. I still need 2 missing parts to complete the job.

Most of the time is still being devoted to engine and transmission research. I did find and order a cool looking DVD. Three hours worth of "Basic Engine Building". Sounds like just what I need.