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.

Congrats to Kelly and Nathan

This week was family-filled as Nathan and Kelly got married. I did manage to get just a little bit of carwork done. I drilled a hole into the frame for the main battery/engine electrical ground, and test-installed the grounding strap onto a bolt that I ran through the hole. I also purchased a voltage regulator which will eventually get installed to keep the engine's alternator from over-charging the car battery. Finally, I got around to a pretty thorough cleaning of the garage which was badly needed. There was still a lot of fiberglass dust left from the work last fall of getting the transmission linkage working with the cockpit tub on.

Happy Independence Day

Not a lot to report, but I did manage to squeeze out an hour and a half to use the rest of my rust-proofing paint, POR-15, to touch up the spots on the frame that I missed the first couple of coats. There were also more places that I would care to admit where the paint had gotten scraped off by wayward tool usage. Not much fun, and nothing worth taking any pictures.

In other news, Paul Proefrock had his car pass state trooper inspection this week. He ended up taking it to Rolla and everything went very smoothly. Someday I hope to be doing the same.

Safety loop pictures

As promised in the last post...

The parts all painted nice and shiny...


All put together...


It took surprisingly long to assemble everything as some of the fitment was not exactly perfect. In fact, I had to undo the X brace altogether and put the brackets in between the 2 big pieces of steel frame to make everything come out like I wanted.

Driveshaft Safety Loop

I have found a little time here and there to work on the driveshaft safety loop. In test fitting it, I determined that it was borderline to fit the way everybody else's did, by bolting to the existing X-brace bolts. I took a little time and decided that if I offset the holes in the bracket a bit, that I would gain enough room to move the loop part a little bit farther back on the shaft itself. The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) mandates that the loop be within 6 inches of the front U-joint. Mine was only about 2 or 3. But since my driveshaft is so short, I figure I should be fine.

I have carefully measured and drilled the holes for mounting the bracket to the frame and have also hit it with a coat of POR-15, the rustproofing paint. Now all I need is for it to dry and bolt everything together. Should be a breeze. I have been procrastinating a bit because I should also use the leftover POR-15 to touch up the frame where I missed some spots the first time, and that means spending a fair amount of time on my back painting the underside of the frame (with a sprained left thumb) in long sleeves and pants because you just don't want to get this stuff on you. Anyway, not something that I exactly look forward to.

Pictures will follow soon when I finish bolting the loop together.

Driveshaft done

I picked up the driveshaft on Tuesday and it was the perfect size. However, I had mis-measured the end caps by a 1/16 of an inch and had to take it back to swap those out. They were very nice about that and did it right when I brought it in, and about taking back the extra hardware I had bought, not knowing at the time if I would need it. Also, I was happy that the final price was almost $40 cheaper than they quoted me.

When I finally got everything right, it went right in in less than 15 minutes. The only down part of that was learning that Dan was not too happy to be with me in the garage when I was working. He just layed out on the floor near my pool table while I worked. Probably for the best in the long run, since it wouldn't be all that safe for a little curious dog. Now the pics...

Two views of the driveshaft installed



A closeup of the endcap/U-joint all mated up.


I also affirmatively decided on installing a driveshaft safety loop and ordered one from JEGS on sale for $19.99. It may arrive today via Federal Express. I will need to use the rust proofing paint on that before installing it, and I will also take that time to touch up the frame. I had purchased a small can of the POR-15 a year ago that I never opened, so I am good to go on that as soon as the loop arrives.

After that, it will be time to tidy up the tranny, mount the cockpit tub, and mount the engine bay frame. Then it will be on to wiring and the steering system.