Mushing onward

Having satisfied myself that my engine title issues will resolve themselves down the road (in Rolla), I have gotten back to work on the car fastening down the cockpit tub this week.

This should have been a pretty easy task, but it turned out to be a little tougher. I had to drill 4 holes in the tub that lined up with the pre-drilled holes in the frame to hold the tub in place. Easy enough. But while I was down there, I was also supposed to drill 10 more holes for the seat and seatbelt mounting spots. Twelve were easy enough, though I really don't like laying on my back doing this work. But 2 of the holes were not accessible any more because they were obstructed by the driveshaft safety loop that I installed a few weeks ago.

My first solution seemed simple enough--just cut off the end of the safety loop that was not needed and was the source of the obstruction. So I locked the cutoff wheel to my angle grinder and plugged it in, prepared to just lop off the excess. When I tried to figure out how to hold the tool at an angle that would let me cut through the steel, I had such a hard time maneuvering while on my back under the car, it seemed extremely dangerous to go that route. In an inspired attack of safety consciousness, I instead decided to try to take a bunch of measurements and drill the holes from above. I used a 1/8" bit and managed to blindly hit both 3/8" holes in the steel after drilling through the fiberglass. Then I widened out the holes by hand with a larger bit and hand file.

Next up was drilling more holes and riviting around the footboxes. Simple enough, except that my frame includes a modification that Hurricane implemented after some other builders figured out a way to get more footroom for the driver, and the instructions for fastening the tub around the footbox don't quite work as they did before. So I posted some questions online and am waiting to get satisfactory guidance on how to proceed before I do any more riviting there. Pictures will come when I finish up. Should be pretty quickly.

Achilles Tendonitis

I did not work on the car this week as I am fighting a very sore left heel. I already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for this past week and she said I had damaged my achilles tendon. She ordered the usual--rest, ice, and stretching--and also gave me Celebrex. And my mom got me a heel pad for my shoe. All of that seems to be helping a great deal and I am off the crutches I used earlier in the week and actually feeling pretty good.

I did go to the Gateway Cobra Club monthly meeting at Sonic in Chesterfield this past Tuesday. It used to conflict with my trivia night at Chevy's, but that seems to have ended. Anyway, the guest speaker was Officer Fountain, the guy who is in charge of doing state inspections of these cars for the county. His talk told me what I already knew, that my engine is just not going to be titleable with them as is. Very depressing.

Cockpit and upper frame installed

This week, I determined that I was missing a couple of things that were needed to install the cockpit. When I got my kit, I did not receive the weatherstripping or 4 large rubber washers that isolate the frame from the cockpit. Fortunately, a quick trip to Home Depot and about $10 remedied that oversight.

I got the weatherstripping laid without any problem
and then Del Poe

came over before playing golf on Friday and we managed to get the cockpit and upper frame installed. Both pieces dropped into place beautifully.


I still need to drill a few holes in the fiberglass for the bolts that will fasten the tub to the frame, and do some riviting around the footboxes. I think I also drill the holes for the seat brackets now too.

This week saw me finish tightening the header bolts and connecting the battery cables to their final location on the starter motor. I also connected the grounding strap to the frame and got a good continuity test from the battery end of the cable to many different spots on the frame. Thus the main ground is good. I also tidied up the transmission lines that will eventually run to the oil cooler at the front of the car. Oh, and I also found another big spot where I missed rustproofing.

I spent some time thinking about what else should be done more easily now than after I put the cockpit into its final position. It is another case of over-thinking things and not getting real progress made. So rather than figure out how exactly to run the transmission oil cooler lines, the neutral safety switch, etc., I have decided to go ahead and put the cockpit in place this coming week. Even if it makes it harder to do future things, I want to keep making progess, and the cockpit will be major, allowing me to proceed on the engine bay, the wiring, the steering, the brakes, etc.

I did figure out a way to get the front end of the car up in the air a little higher, maybe an inch or so. That should make working under the car a tiny bit better. No pictures this week, but next should be exciting if the cockpit gets done.

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.