Wow! Already into Chapter 3

Five days in and I am already into chapter 3. Of course chapter 1 is just a thank you and chapter 2 is their legal disclaimer disavowing any responsibility for the terrible things that may happen in the construction and operation of this car. There are still 35 chapters to go and that doesn't include some things like engine buildup, body work and painting which aren't covered in the manual. Should I be worried?

The inventory process went much slower than I expected. The main problem seemed to be that I did not have the foggiest idea of what I was looking at much of the time. Ten minutes or so of fingering through the manual, I could usually figure it out. But not always. Some stuff did not seem to be on the list, some stuff seemed to be missing from the list, and some parts had changed from the list and the illustrations and instructions in build manual. In a lot of ways, this is art, not science.

Somewhere I read that there are 3000 separate parts in the car. For the most part, I seem to have what I am supposed to have. A few big items are still backordered, like the radiator, the side pipes, and the headers from the engine. None of these are needed very soon. So I am going to just press forward and not worry about every single item being exactly as expected. Hurricane has an outstanding reputation of customer service on such matters.

Here are a few pics to illustrate what was in the 25 boxes in the last post:

Here is one of the wheels and spinners.

Here is the box with all of the carpeting for the interior and the vinyl for the dashboard.

Here is the contents of one box spread out on my pooltable. Much of it is suspension parts, like the shock absorbers, and some of the steering system.

Finally, there is a picture of the windshield. That is the next thing for me to work on, temporarily assembling the windshield in order to locate some holes that need to be drilled into the frame while the body is on. It won't actually get installed for quite some time, but the location of these holes won't be accessible later.

Nathan and I will probably be doing that on Thursday. That is a 2 person job--one of the few. After that, I will be able to remove the body and start working on the frame. Until then, I am continuously reorganizing my work areas.

What the Hell have I gotten myself into?

That is my overriding feeling today as I have picked up my kit from Hurricane Motorsports and drove it home. I have to be the most unqualified, inexperienced person to attempt to build one of these cars. In fact, I am sure many people think I should be the last person to build one. Well, in fact, I may be. Jason at Hurricane told me when I was picking up the kit that it is the last full kit to go out the door. Future Hurricanes will be "rollers" or "turnkeys". Essentially, that means that Hurricane builds most of the car and the buyer just does the engine, primarily.

Here is Bill Smith loaning me his trailer.

Here is the main pile of parts I picked up at Hurricane (with a couple of other customers' cars in the background).


And what we looked like 2 hours later, pulling away. We had a lot of trouble getting the frame/body onto the trailer. It was just me, Jim Jones, and Jason from Hurricane. Damn, that sucker was heavy.


Four and a half hours later we got to my house. I had subsequently called my nephews, Nathan and Phil Halley, along with Bill Smith and Paul Proefrock to come over and help unload. This was no easy task, especially trying to get the frame/body back off of the trailer. Brute force manhandling was just not going to work. Eventually Paul had the great idea to back the trailer all the way into the garage and slide the car part way off the trailer, then drive the car away, very slowly, while others managed the cars descent. That worked like a charm and we were done in about an hour, but too dark for many good pictures. Boy it is nice to have really smart friends.

Finally, I am including a couple of shots of the parts with me and Phil, and the obligatory shot of a dude (Nathan) sitting in the empty car, pretending to be driving.


The next steps will be to inventory everything I've got, and to try to better organize things in my garage (and living room where the parts are currently stored). Once I actually start into building, the first step is to drill some preparatory holes for the windshield to be fitted prior to removing all of the body and panels to access the frame.

Almost...

Hurricane says my kit is ready for pickup. So this coming Tuesday is the day that Jim Jones and I are driving to KC to pick it up. The only thing we know won't be there is the radiator which is backordered and will be sent to me directly from the maker. I expect lots of pictures from the transport adventure.

Delivery Delayed; Body Buck Built

I was unable to pick up my kit last week because Hurricane has not fully received all of the parts that they need. Some things can be backordered, but some cannot, and the late arriving part was coming from the fiberglass supplier and too important to just backorder. So now, we are hoping that Hurricane will have everything by this Wednesday, Feb 13. I am not going to hold my breath, and actually, it would not be all that bad if it slipped a little more as I am going to be very busy this week and weekend doing the TYCOON simulation at Wash U.

I have however completed the construction of my body buck.

Here is Jim Jones (who really does have a forehead) helping me get the OSB home from Home Depot in Sue's Denali. It did not quite fit so we had to rig up some bungee cords to keep them in place to get them home.

From there, I worked on meticulously measuring and cutting them to the specs that Paul Proefrock had on his website.


After doing as much as I could by myself, I had to call on my nephew, Nathan Halley, to help construct the rest of the buck. It took us about 2 and a half hours one evening to glue and screw everything together. I think it turned out great.




The final product was finished the next day when I added the vertical brace, evened up the shelf, and finally added the foam insulation pieces to protect the fiberglass body where it will be resting on the buck.

Lots of things were learned along the way. Like make sure that your battery is fully charged when drilling/screwing into such dense wood. And that the foam pipe insulation is already scored so you don't have to cut it with a utility knife. Ask me when I found that out.

My wood posted on the internet and it is not a porn site!

Today I went out and purchased most of what I will need to make the body buck. Happily, all the lumber fit beautifully in the trunk of my Passat. I really love that car. I did not think twice about the fold down seats when I bought it, but I love that feature and have used it many times. Here you can see how easily it swallowed up all of the wood.

Here is a picture of all the materials unloaded in my garage. I still need to get two 4x8 sheets of OSB, but that would not fit in the Passat. I will impose on a friend later in the week or wait til next week and use Sue's Denali.


When I am done, it should look something like this...


For more information on the plans I am borrowing, go to Paul Proefrock's site.

"Delivery" date seems to be set

I heard from Hurricane this week that my kit will be ready for pickup on Friday, February 8th. That is basically 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Hurray!!! It looks like it will be me and Nathan going to KC to pick it up. The plan is to use Sue's Yukon Denali and renting a Uhaul car trailer. Have to nail that down next week as well as moving the money around to pay Hurricane the balance. And I will be building my body buck to store the fiberglass body until it is ready to be worked on.

This week, I have done a lot more work preparing my work areas. Here is a picture of showing the newly covered tabletops, power run, computer and TV setup, and a new stool. Man, I am having fun.

A New Use

About a quarter century ago, Jerry and I built some wonderful wooden tables for my electric model train set. Hours of fun were had. My dad worked during his sickness on models for the layout. The Halley kids all spent many hours on my knee playing with the trains. But about a dozen years or so ago, I decided to take them down to reuse the room where they were located. They have been sitting in a closet (named the "big dog" room to tease a tiny little Abby who was afraid of big dogs) ever since.

Well, last week, in preparation for the arrival of something like 3000 parts for the Cobra, I decided to create a workbench area in my laundry room and to reuse these tables as the workspace. Cleaning the floor took several hours,

not even counting the time wasted looking at the old finds, things I completely forgot I had. A dozen or so tee shirts, a childhood toybox, amazing sports memorabilia, and a couple of folders from my college days including several papers I wrote that I didn't even understand anymore.

Once I had the space clean, I had to tackle the job of ripping up the train stuff. Hundreds of little nails holding the track down, more to keep the cork roadbed down, removing piers holding up the raised track areas, wires running everywhere. Here is a pic of one of the smaller tables during the process.


The process was not too bad. Smartly, I did the destruction in the big dog room, so I don't have little nails all over. I ended up just doing two of the large 4 foot by 4 foot table. I still have 3 others that may end up getting reused in the garage at some point.


So when I put them together, I have a new 4 by 8 workspace. And it is right under a heating and A/C outlet.


I think I will probably end up doing something to revitalize the tabletops. They are pretty dirty and the green paint is uneven. I think I like the green color and it should make for a nice background down the road when I need to take more parts pictures, but the surface is not too great to write on and I probably ought to put down some vinyl to make it easy to clean up grease, paint, and glue.

This week, I am going to try to get my hands around the tool needs.