Apr. '04 - Drivetrain and First Run

04/04/04

Here you can see the new power steering bracket and pump hooked up. The new bracket was polished, so now I suppose at some point I'll have to pull the alternator bracket off and polish it, too. Later. Still have to mount the steering lines up off to one side. Got the belt length right on the first try - 71 inches.

Got my replacement donor fan shroud, courtesy of a fellow FFCobra.com builder, so I took the cracked one off the three-row radiator from Breeze and attached the new one. The bottom of the radiator is multi-zip-tied in place until some other pieces go on. Still have to put the heater and coolant lines in, the overflow tank, and the lower radiator hose. After that, I'll need to connect or close off the vacuum and PVC line, hook up the ignition electronics, and I can fire this puppy up! Stay tuned!

4/25/04

First step was to fill the cooling system up with a nice 60% water 40% antifreeze. After hearing about several builders with problems burping the air out of the cooling system, I filled the engine with coolant using the heater hose line on the intake until it would take no more, then topped it off at the filler neck on the upper hose. It happily took about 3.5 gallons with only a few minor gurgles.

Filling it with coolant at the motor seems to be the real trick to avoiding trapped air pockets - I had no problems with overflowing so far. We'll see how the overflow bottle looks in the morning after it has cooled down completely.

After cracking my starter solenoid by torquing down a bit too much attaching the battery cable, I put a new one on the starter which turned out to be conveniently pre-broken. Saved me the trouble of doing it. But, Checker happily replaced it, so I got that problem solved. I also solved the unworking guages problem - grounding the circuit always helps.

Using the oil-pump-primer rent-a-tool on my drill, I popped the distributor out and cranked the oil pump over for a while, making sure I got at least a good 50 psi for a minute or so to get the motor nice and lubed up.

On my first couple of attempts, I didn't have the timing or the carb set up right, as you can see with the colorful burp of smoke in this clip. What I know about carburetor setup would fit on the end of an idle set screw, so got a knowledgeable acquaintance to help.

The Summit fuel pump is hideously noisy. I'll have to get some rubber bushings to help quiet things down a bit. Having a completed cockpit would probably help.

After getting a few more adjustments made, it would finally idle somewhat. It's LOUD!! The glasspack mufflers have got to GO - I don't think there's even and glass in there!! My stereo stuff will be next to useless if I can't get the thing quieted down a little bit.

I tightened down a few bolts, made sure all the wiring was fastened or zip-tied down and nothing was hanging loose, and we took it for its maiden voyage. She decided to mark her territory, though, and left a trail of pink fluid all the way around the block. Seems I forgot to put the speedometer plug back in the transmission. D'OH!

After getting the plug in and putting some more tranny fluid in, Rena finally dared to take a ride. Got some pretty weird looks from neighbors out enjoying the beautiful spring weather - wondering what in the hell I was driving. Quite a few neighbor kids came by to see what was going on.