Feb. '04 - Cockpit, Brakes, Fuel Lines

2/7/04

Didn't get much done last weekend, thanks to having to work on a special project for my day job. After a few weeks of mild thaw, winter seems to have gotten its second wind around here and covered everything up again. I still think I can have this thing drivable by the end of Spring.

I got the tranny tunnel front riveted in...first step to getting the footboxes and the rest of the cockpit finished up. I'm waiting on the passenger footbox for some custom-made aluminum pieces from CobraEarl...he makes a kit that makes the passenger's leg room much more livable than stock. Neat stuff.

Got the driver's side cockpit floor in, too. CC.com'er Mark Worthington's recommendation to go up a collet size on the air riveter paid off...now the mandrels just drop out after each pull instead of gumming up the riveter, even if it is a cheapo Harbor-Freight-type model. Goes much quicker now. Have to leave the outside edge unriveted until I put the outside panels in, which won't be until the body gets trial-fitted, since they often have to be trimmed a bit to get the body to settle properly.

I used coat-hanger wire to mock up some templates for brake line routing. Made bending the lines much easier... I could do them whilst chillin' on the floor watching a movie. I wimped out on flaring my own lines though...the flaring tool I have is a piece of junk. Another example of why you shouldn't waste your money on cheap tools. Went to NAPA and got a collection of preflared lines and some adapter fittings.

Another template shot. Zipties rule.

Now that they're all bent, it was time to fasten them in place. Not the neatest job of line bending and routing in the world, but what can I say? Some people get bent better than I do. FFR provides some insulated line clips for the brakes, which fasten with the self-tapping screws they use to attach the aluminum panels to the frame for shipping.

T-fitting to driver's side front brake shown here. The bracket for the flexible line is from the donor car, reshaped and painted. I don't like how flimsy the mounting it with the screws FFR provided to attch them, so I'll get some 1.5" bolts and drill straight through.

Braided steel line from Breeze. Caliper from FRPP. Shoe from Adidas.

And the crossover on the front X-member to the passenger side:

And the passenger side routing. Don't laugh at my curly-Q at the end.

And the passenger side.

The rear line. The clips for these will go on once I get the bottom and side of the footbox in place.

And routed underneath, snug up against the 4" main rail.

Up the rear 2x3. I need one more length to attach to the donor bracket to the flexible line. Debating whether or not to get the braided lines for the rear.

2/8/04

Got the driver's footbox done as much as possible until all the wiring is completed, and the pedals all get hooked up. The top of the footbox will go on after that's all done.

And an interior shot. No room for a deadpedal, unfortunately, and no where to really stick my left foot when it's not clutching. A lot of owners these days cut out the diagonal reinforcement and weld a 90-degree bend in so they can put a dead pedal in and still have some measure of side-impact protection. Not that it matters much, since the driver's torso and head have next to none.

With that, I had enough pieces in place to try out the seating position...comfortable, good reach to the pedals, but snug. It does indeed feel like a cockpit, and not some luxobarge. Won't be long before I can drive right out that door to terrorize the neighborhood!

Mikey's not trying to bite my head off, really...he just decided it would be a good time to yawn. He doesn't like being in the garage when I have the air compressor and the heater going though...makes him nervous.

Rena took a break from studying long enough to try it out too. Gotta love my 'mad Russian' hat. Yes, it is that cold up here right now.

2/15/04

Got the rear brakes on, then got all the lines finished up this weekend, and tightened everything down. Rena helped me bleed the brakes. Only had one leak crop up in the process...one of the line unions in the rear line wasn't quite tight enough. Wrench it down good, and worked like a charm. Nice firm pedal...can't wait to try 'em out! Not as much travel as I'd like. I think I'll pull the MC off and put one or two of the spacers from FFR in there to lower the pedal height a bit.

Got nice clean fluid, and everything...

North Cobra offset rear brackets let me use the SN95 brakes with the standard Fox-length axles, so I don't have to run different offsets. They're thinner than the stock brackets, and I don't have the anti-moan brackets on, so I had to use a few washers to keep the caliper bolts from digging into the bLiNG! slotted rotor. Hey, the price was right.

Flexible line brackets are ziptied in place until I can remove the coilover to rig up something more permanent. I refuse to use the Torx screw Ford puts in there. Torx is the root of all evil.

Got started on the fuel system....put the fuel pickup kit from Breeze Automotive in there, mounted the fuel filter and pump. Dunno if I really like the clamps provided with that kit. Straight shot over to the fuel filter.

Summit sells a fuel system kit that includes this filter, a 140gph pump, regulator, and 20' of braided line with AN fittings and enough insulated clips to attach everything to the frame.

The fuel line will run straight over from the filter, down the vertical 2x3 and attach to the pump inlet with a 90 degree fitting. From there it will run along the 4" main rail and up the front of the passenger footbox (not assembled yet...waiting for an expansion kit) to the regulator, and from there to the carburetor.

And the fuel pump, looking from the passenger toward the driver's side of the car. Not sure if I like the clearances to the suspension...but there aren't a whole lot of options for pump mounting location. This seems to be where a lot of the carb builders are putting it.

The pump again, looking straight down.

Cheap Summit braided line immediately frays when trying to put the AN fitting on. Or maybe there's some trick to that I haven't figgered out yet.

2/22/04

Got the passenger footbox finished up this weekend using Earl (CobraEarl) Groce's custom panel kit that provides a bit more room and a better seating position for the passenger. Good stuff.

Here's the stock footbox from FFR, viewed from the front of the car. The angle forces th passenger to sit with the legs off to the right a bit, and the floor sits on top of the round tube. Not very comfy. Earl's kit adds room for the left foot and drops the floor about two inches.

A vertical shot of the stock box:

And the modified box, looking down.

And from the right side...note the box goes down below the round tube. Might make header clearance a little dicey, but we'll find out next week (hopefully).

And the finished box from the inside.

It turns out there is a trick to getting the AN fittings on the braided line...lots of cursing and yelling and jumping up and down, then squeezing the braid tight around the hose and working the end into the fitting, one wire at a time. Royal pain in the sphincter. Persistence always pays off. Only got the filter-to-pump line in though...the pump-to-regulator line will get run under the car this weekend or next after the motor goes in.

Here's a shot straight down at the line going into the fuel pump. At right height the axle tube will seat about two inches higher than the line, then about two inches forward. Should be OK. If I get in a wreck bad enough to break all three rear control arms to let the axle hit the line, I'll be toast anyway.

2/28/04

Rented a cherry picker to drop the motor in, but unfortunately no one in town seems to have an engine tilter, so I opted to drop the motor in by itself and install the bellhousing and tranny from underneath later. The tilter would have made it easier to drop the engine/tranny in as a unit. I didn't have any helping hands around, so I figured it would be safer.

The day's work is lined up:

Pretty straightforward (or so I thought). Hook the motor up to the picker, unbolt it from the stand, lift it, drop it into place. Easy, right?

Oops. That was as low as the picker would go. Not a big deal, though, I just put the car up on jack stands and dropped 'er in. I could have used a chain to lift the motor instead of lifting directly from the lift plate, but then the picker would probably have hit the rafters.

Stud in the slot:

It won't sit quite level...gonna have to adjust it a bit. The Prothane mounts are pretty thick...it doesn't sit quite as low as I thought it would. Plus, I lost my motor mount nuts, and the new mounts didn't come with and, so I can add those to the hardware-to-be-chased-down list. (That list has been the biggest pain in the ass of this entire project!)

Header clearance is going to be very tight:

I also got the flywheel on from underneath, then realized I don't have the pressure plate bolts either. ARGH! A note to all you prospective FFR builders - make sure you bag and label all the donor car hardware and don't toss the stuff when you clean out the garage!